There's Someone for Everyone
by idkaname
Summary: Trix is just another metahuman, or so she thinks. But after joining the JL, falling for a certain loner, and creating an arch rival who is bent on destroying everything good in her life: she's nothing but normal. After a few years of JL, no JLU
1. Chapter 1

The loud thumps of heavy footsteps echoed through the east Norfolk alleyway. The heavy breathing of the man in black leather with a ski-mask over his face was almost as loud. He glanced over his shoulder to see if his pursuer was still behind him, but the dark street was empty.

"Where are you going so fast? Not scared of little old me, are you?" came a sweet, sing-song voice from the rooftops above.

"Stay away from me!" the man's voice shook from the knowledge that he had been cornered.

"Very well." The voice sang. Then the winds began to pick up around the man. He whirled around in fright as purple mist began to seep from the winds. Soon he was screaming as he was picked up off the ground and thrown over the buildings behind him only to land on the hood of a nearby police cruiser.

A soft thud echoed through the silent alley as a small shape dropped to the pavement from a fire escape. The shadowy figure quickly and silently made its way toward the brightly-lit main street a block to the north. The purple mist that had thrown the man began to dissipate, most of it flowing into the fleeting figure.

Another soft sound was heard from the other side of the dark, high-walled street. The first figure turned with a smirk. "You're a long way from Gotham, Dark Knight." Batman's face below his cowl pulled down into a scowl. "And you're a long way from Central City, Flash."

"Aw man!" the scarlet speedster whined as he skidded to a stop behind the still smirking figure. "Bet you don't know why we're here, though!" he asked hopefully.

"No, I have no clue why you two are here. It's like I'm a Legion of Doom scout or anything." Confusion and weariness began to creep into the now cornered shadow's voice.

"True, but _we've_ been scouting _you_. We've seen and heard reports of some of your 'work.'" Batman wanted to finish this conversation quickly and get this cocky little metahuman to the Watchtower.

The figure that had stayed in the shadows suddenly stepped into the light of a nearby streetlamp. "Now what does the Justice League want with a small-town vigilante like me?" The once shadowy figure was a young woman in her mid twenties with white-blond hair that flowed down past her exposed stomach to touch the top of her black skinny-jeans. Her alabaster stomach, which was as pale as the rest of her, was open to the cold night until it hit her blue, tight and long-sleeved shirt. Her deep purple eyes focused on the two heroes who now stood side by side.

"Whoa, you're…" Flash would have made some undesirable remark, but a cloud of purple energy covered his mouth, effectively silencing him.

"Could you do that more often?" Batman joked darkly.

"Of course. But I'd hate to keep your team mates waiting; so we should best be going." She gracefully loped to the other side of the alley from which Batman had come.

The Dark Knight's cape rustled as he ran to catch up. "You don't know where we're going!" he growled.

"You do!" she sang as she tapped her temple.

The three hurried through the alleyways until they reached Town Point Park. Resting by the water's edge was a sleek silver spacecraft about the size of a yacht. They filed on and took various seats inside the vessel. The ride was silent aside from the whir of the engines and Flash's foot tapping away at super-sonic speeds.

When the ship docked in the bay of the floating station the Justice League used as a base, the door opened to reveal none other than the Man of Steel himself. "Welcome to the Watchtower, ms." He extended his large hand to the still stunned woman.

"Thank you, Superman." she was surprised by the authenticity of his welcome. She, personally, _had_ thought that the whole 'boy scout' routine was just a façade.

Wonder Woman came floating down from who knows where to land next to her comrade. "What do you call yourself?" she asked as she also extended her hand to the newcomer.

"Trix, your highness." She bowed her head as she met Wonder Woman's hand in a firm shake.

"She's as bad as Batman as far as formalities are concerned!" laughed a winged woman with a mace fastened to her belt. She flapped her feathered appendages a few times before landing gracefully on the other side of Superman from Wonder Woman. "I'm Hawkgirl." She, too, shook hands with Trix.

After Batman and Flash had disembarked from the Javelin, as they told Trix it was called, Trix did a quick mental count of five extremely powerful superheroes; the famed Justice League had seven members. She simply surmised that the other two were on a mission or something else duty-related.

"Where are GL and J'onn?" Flash asked Hawkgirl after e had slowed down to walk beside her.

"Lantern's coming and J'onn is on the control deck; somebody had to watch the monitors." Flash nodded as he sped back up. Trix's interest was rekindled with the thought of possibility of meeting the heroes soon.

The six left the docking bay quickly and entered a large elevator. Once inside, Superman reached over and hit the button labeled 'control.' The elevator moved quickly while all of the occupants were silent. Hawkgirl was leaning against the front corner, Batman and Wonder Woman were standing near each other in the back, Superman had placed himself between Trix and the door, and Flash stood beside her with his foot tapping at super-speeds again.

"This is going to be interesting." Trix heard Flash mutter. But she couldn't be sure he had actually said it, he could have just thought it.

When the doors opened, Superman was the first to step out, followed closely by Trix; while the others moved at a more leisurely pace. Standing on the other side of the raised platform from the group was a 

blue caped figure with its back to them. "J'onn," Superman called out. "We've brought the new one up."

The figure turned to face the group, which Trix was now at the front of; since Superman had taken a few steps back. Trix was jolted by the sight before her. The man stood about six foot seven, very muscled, and green-ish; but Trix almost completely ignored her last observation. He wore blue boots, tight blue shorts, and his blue cape was fastened by red straps that criss-crossed across his broad chest. His head was smooth with a slightly pronounced brow, and his red eyes were captivating. Trix found her eyes ensnared by his.

While she was looking J'onn over, he was doing the same to Trix. She was slightly petite; probably only five foot six, she was extremely thin, yet she appeared strong. Her tight-fitting black pants hugged the curves of her legs until they stopped with a purple belt at her hips. Her exposed stomach was thin, toned, and marred by scars that few had noticed. Her blue top gripped her chest and thin shoulders and traveled down to her delicate hands. From there, J'onn's eyes traveled up her shimmering white-blond hair to her face. It was slightly heart-shaped and pale; with soft pink lips, a few freckles on her cheekbones, and the most vibrant pair of eyes J'onn had ever seen.

Red locked with violet from that point. After a few moments, Superman interceded for his friend and the newcomer. "J'onn, this is Trix." He motioned towards the immobile woman.

J'onn nodded as he took a few steps to stand in front of Trix. He extended his hand to her; but unlike his comrades, his rendering of the gesture was almost shy. "My name is J'onn J'onzz." He said in a deep voice that almost made Trix shudder, but she suppressed it. "It is good to meet you." he added when their hands met. An almost electric current went through both of them at the contact.

The moment between the two of them was broken by the elevator doors opening again. Out stepped a tall, dark skinned man wearing the intergalacticaly recognized uniform of the Green Lantern Corps. He quickly walked forward to stand next to Hawkgirl. "Sorry I'm late." He addressed the group of now eight.

Superman nodded and turned back to Trix. "Green Lantern, this is Trix." He motioned to her again before she met yet another of the heroes in a handshake.

Batman spoke up for the first time since the group had grown larger than three. "I think we should get this done and over with." The other League members nodded and made their ways back to the elevator Trix fell into step along side J'onn and stood beside him in the elevator. Occasionally, their arms would brush against the other. His cool skin had an odd effect on Trix, as did her warm skin on J'onn.

Soon they all stepped off the elevator, which had been a bit more crowded than before. The group moved down a few corridors and came to a stop in front of a set of double metal doors. They filed into the slightly large room with a long table with seven chairs against a wall and a lone chair in the center of the room. The League members took their seats at the table while Superman motioned for Trix to take the lone chair.

As soon as everyone was seated, Superman cleared his throat to get their attention. Once he had it, he began. "Trix, I'm sure you're wondering why we've brought you here." She nodded. "Well, we have decided to gather other extraordinary people to supplement our ranks. We have selected you to be the first trainee." Trix's jaw popped open as the words sunk in.

"But we have a few questions for you before we make it official." Batman spoke up from his seat at Superman's right. Trix nodded, still in shock. "We know you go by Trix, but what is your name."

Trix shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Sure, they were the _Justice League_, but she had never told _anyone _about her alter ego. "Don't worry," Wonder Woman soothed, having picked up on the other woman's unease. "Anything you say in this room will stay between the eight of us."

Trix nodded as she took a deep breath to calm herself. "My name is Madeline Thorold." She had always thought that her name was boring, but her agent was always trying to tell her otherwise.

"Madeline Thorold, as in the model Maddie Thorold?" Flash asked excitedly.

Madeline groaned. "The one and only." She dropped her head into her hands, separating herself from the others by a curtain of her white-blond hair.

"Moving on." Batman growled at Flash. "What are your powers?"

This was an easy question for Madeline, so she looked up from her hands. "I have control over this purple mist-like stuff, I'm empathic, and slightly telepathic." J'onn's red eyes lit up at the notion of someone else understanding the mind like he did. But she was empathic, so he would have to curb this unknown that was bubbling in his chest.

Batman nodded before giving his next question. "Do you have any family that might need to be protected?"

"None." Madeline sighed. "I'm an only child, my parents died when I was seventeen, and I've never really been with anyone."J'onn felt great empathy towards Madeline. He was the last of his kind; his family and whole species killed by an opposing race of Martians. Madeline, however, was bombarded by his thoughts and feelings. She glanced over at the Martian with a new understanding. But when she accidentally caught his eyes, she felt a blush working its way onto her cheeks and looked back to Batman for his next question.

"Well, that was everything." Superman said instead. "Welcome to the League!" he nodded toward the now petrified Madeline.

Flash sprinted around the table to stand in front of her. "So, Maddie, I was just wondering if you wanted to go get a drink with me later. And please, call me Wally; not Flash."

Madeline managed to crack her shock and actually act like a normal person. "Um, Wally, as much as I would like to, I'm afraid I can't." It felt so weird on her tongue to call the fastest man alive by his first name.

Wally nodded sadly and sprinted out the door. Wonder Woman approached Madeline next while chuckling at her friend under her breath. "Don't mind him; he's like that with all beautiful women; especially since you're apparently a model that he knows. But Shiera was right about you and formalities; you must call me Diana. And please, forget about my heritage; here you are my equal." Madeline nodded meekly as she pieced together that Shiera was Hawkgirl. But the concept of the Themysciran Princess considering her beautiful and her equal was rather nerve-racking.

After Diana walked to the door, Green Lantern walked up to her with Shiera a few steps behind him "Since this seems to be the new tradition: My name is John Stewart; not to be confused with J'onn over there." Madeline let out a small laugh. That one sound just about knocked J'onn off his chair; which he was still in. It was soft, slightly high in pitch, and like a smooth bell.

"Well, you're a _Green_ Lantern and he's _green._" Shiera joked as she walked past the two. "Well, Maddie, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to show you to your room and then give you a small tour." She called to the door. Madeline didn't particularly like the use of the shortened version of her name, but she didn't want to complain to the heroes who had just accepted her.

"One moment." She called as she stood from her chair. She walked over to J'onn, who was still in his chair. He was staring off into space, trying to corral his emotions before the empathic object of them noticed their presence. "Hey, J'onn, are you going to sit there all day or are you going to come along?" she had meant for her voice to be lighthearted and joking, but as soon as his red eyes met hers, she lost most of her train of thought and it came out shaky and soft.

Madeline's violet eyes had the same effect on J'onn. He had intended to stay in the meeting room until he could regain his composure; but Madeline's voice, among other things, had him captivated. He had been thinking about how their eyes had locked on their meeting, the shock that had gone through him when they shook hands, and the odd warm tingling that had radiated on his arm whenever she accidentally touched him in the close quarters of the elevator. He also wondered why she turned down Flash's offer of a drink. And most importantly; why had she come over to ask him about his intentions? He looked into the full force of her eyes. "Of course." He almost stuttered. A small smile graced her pink lips, and he had a hard time not mirroring it on his green counterpart.

Madeline was glad J'onn had agreed; she wanted to spend more time around this fellow telepath. She also wanted to get to know him better, and to figure out why she couldn't hear his thoughts in the back of her head like she could everybody else's. She carefully hooked her hand under the crook of his elbow and gently pulled him from his seat and led him to the door. Yet another shock went through them at the contact. She broke the contact to turn to Shiera, who was trying desperately not to smirk; since her mouth was not covered by her feathery cowl. "I don't need to be shown to my room; I already know where it is."

"How…" Shiera began, but was cut off by Madeline tapping her temple with an innocent smile.

J'onn smirked inwardly, but Madeline felt his change in emotion from shocked to amused. She turned to him and almost gasped. He had leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms across his chest. His 

faced was graced by a small smile, and their eyes locked yet again. Both were trying to deny the odd emotions rising in their chests, and both were completely and utterly loosing. J'onn's mind was thrown into a tumble by the angelic yet mischievous woman before him; while Madeline trying to submerge her mirrored opinions for the lone alien Adonis before her.

And to think they'd only known each other for half an hour at the most.

**Greetings fellow earthlings! Both halves of idkaname speaking.**

**The two of us have been JLA fans since the age of 5, and we have finally found the perfect inspiration.**

**Note: later chapters might me told from Maddie or J'onn's POV, depending on who has more time to write (the female half C M would write for Maddie, and the male half L W would write for J'onn) But if we do, it will be a repeat of the awkwardness that ensued after L W wrote as Abe for a chapter in "Never Judge."**

**Well, we love your reviews and reply EVERY SINGLE ONE.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W idkaname**


	2. Chapter 2

For another hour or so, Shiera, John, Madeline, and J'onn walked around the Watchtower; trying to avoid Wally, since he was still a little over exuberant. John was asking about Norfolk, since he had lived there for a short time. The city was as much of a cross between old and new as it had ever been; Madeline herself lived in an old brick flat that over looked St. Paul's Cathedral and the Macarthur Center Mall. The city's crime had gone up and down since John had lived there. The major decline when Trix stepped up to the plate.

Madeline asked the three heroes why they had selected her instead of other small heroes like Spiderman, the Ninja Turtles, or the Fantastic Four.

"The turtles are a little too rambunctious, so it would be like having four more Wallies running around. Spiderman is a bit too big of a franchise for us. And the Fantastic Four are already a good team in themselves; so their integration would be difficult." Shiera answered after pointing out the cafeteria.

Madeline nodded, having met the brothers and their comrades. "Well, if you count the Turtles' fighters, there are seven of them. And the only one you'd need to worry about is Michey, and maybe Case. But the others wouldn't be any worse than me."

J'onn's pace slowed to walk beside the petite blond, whose shorter strides kept her at the back of the group. "When we inquired about them before, there were six capable fighters. You said seven." He pointed out. Her violet eyes nearly knocked the breath out of him when she turned to look at him.

Madeline looked down from his eyes so as not to be captured by the red orbs again. She pondered his question; settling on the simple method of counting on her fingers and mouthing their names to herself. J'onn read her lips for the names, trying to not get distracted by them. '_Don, Leo, Michey, Raph, Em, Case, April_.' Then her eyes widened in understanding. "You must not have met Em, Emily Fredricks."

J'onn nodded, searching in Madeline's mind for her memories of Emily. She was a few inches taller than Madeline, tanned, and obviously strong. She had short, compared to Madeline's, black hair and soft blue eyes. She was a kick-boxer who had stood up to The Foot, and ended up joining forces with the Turtles. The last time Madeline had visited, she was in a romantic relationship with the second oldest brother, Raphael.

The talk of romance brought J'onn back to the present. He glanced at Shiera and John, who walked ahead of him. If it hadn't been for the new member with them, they would have been holding hands. But it didn't make all that much difference, since Madeline could feel the emotions coming off of them. Madeline: J'onn's thought and eyes turned back to the woman who walked beside him. Her long white-blond hair was now held back by a black ribbon, but a few bangs that had escaped captivity framed her face. Her deep violet eyes darted down the different corridors as they passed them. Whenever her head turned past a certain point, J'onn got a look at a wide white scar that ran down the back of her neck and under her shirt. He wondered how far it traveled, since it did not reach her back. He shook his head in amazement at his lack of control.

The motion caught Madeline's eyes, and she glanced at the man who walked beside her. She had been trying to avoid looking at J'onn; since every time she did, her mind would go blank and then meander down unwanted topics. And the feelings coming off of the lovebird and John weren't helping much. But Madeline couldn't help but be captivated by the Martian who still walked beside her, even though his question had been answered. J'onn's walk was both strong and fluid, with his muscled arms barely deviating from his sides. At one point, she had noticed his usually deep scarlet eyes seeming to glow yellow from within; this was just before she felt a presence in her mind willing forward her memories of Emily. Realizing it was only J'onn, she allowed it; and she ended up smiling when she remembered accidentally walking in on Raph and Em and narrowly avoiding a hurled boxing glove.

Then Madeline felt an odd feeling bombard her sense of empathic reception: longing. Thinking it was the lovebird and John, she tried to push it away from her attention and ignore it. But something in her subconscious wouldn't hear that. So Madeline decided to focus on who it was coming from. She tried to stifle the gasp that arose once she figured it out, but the sharp intake of breath was slightly audible; especially to the person she had pinpointed: J'onn.

Madeline slowly turned her head to see who he was looking at; and thus, probably who he was feeling the out of place emotion towards.

J'onn was looking at her.

Madeline had almost completely turned around and so she didn't see the slight step up in the floor. She tumbled backward after her heel caught the edge. Madeline scrunched her eyes shut and prepared for impact, but it never came. Two hard arms wrapped themselves around her; one around her waist and the other behind her shoulders. Cold electricity shot through her, so she knew who had caught her.

Before her equilibrium had returned, she felt herself leaning forward against something hard and cold. Thinking it was the wall; Madeline relaxed against it and tried to collect her wits after her embarrassing near fall. Then the 'wall' slowly rose and fell beneath her. Madeline stiffened as her eyes shot opened. She wasn't leaning against a wall, but J'onn's broad, green chest. "Oh, J'onn, I'm very sorry for my clumsiness. I was, um, distracted."

Then it dawned on Madeline that J'onn's arms were still around her, securing her to his chest. "Are you alright?" he asked with true concern. J'onn was trying very hard to control his voice so that it would not falter with Madeline so close, actually _leaning against_ him, and looking up at him in shock. Both of them were absolutely tingling with shivers running down their spines. J'onn did not know why the mere presence of this woman affected him so.

She nodded, relaxing slightly in his grasp. She was acutely aware of J'onn's hand on her hip and the one wrapped around her arm. The cold sparks had just about taken her over, and they would have if it wasn't for her heart beating away at a furious pace. Her hands were resting against J'onn's chest, and one was over his heart; it, too, was racing.

"Then perhaps I should show you to your room; since John and Shiera did not notice your fall and have already moved ahead." His voice was faltering slightly, but Madeline barely noticed. She was too entranced by his red eyes and hard yet soft skin. She barely even registered his words.

Her mind skipped down an unwanted road when "J'onn" and "room" in the same sentence. She mentally chastised herself and nodded. "I think that would be a good idea, since it's already ten o'clock."

Unbeknown to Madeline, J'onn was fighting off that same path. But because of the unfamiliarity of the emotions to him, J'onn was losing. "Yes." He begrudgingly removed his arms from Madeline, having enjoyed her warms on him. He made sure she had her own balance before he stepped away from her and began to walk slowly, so Madeline could keep up, to the private quarters.

After about a minute of walking in silence, they reached Madeline's room. J'onn showed her how to key in her access code that would get her into almost all of the rooms in the Watchtower. Just before J'onn was about to leave, Madeline gently placed her hand on his arm. "Thank you, J'onn. And good night." She no more than whispered.

J'onn took a half a step forward while still staying in contact with Madeline. "You are welcome. And good night to you as well." He quickly turned and walked down the hallway. He knew that a new emotion was bubbling up in his heart, and he didn't want Madeline to find out about it before he even knew what it was.

But both had a little more than subconsciously wished that J'onn had continued to step forward. Oh well, today was only the _first_ day.

**Sorry it took us so long, but school and a few other stories took priority over this.**

**J'onn and Madeline sure seem to be hitting it off. But it won't always be like that. We just needed to lay the base line.**

**So: are their feelings more than that for a new plaything? Where is that arch enemy we talked about in the summary? **

**Find out in the next update, which will be in no more than a week. As always, your input (reviews) are adored and always replied.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W idkaname**


	3. Chapter 3

Madeline was awoken the next morning by a rather annoying beeping. She didn't know what it was, so she bolted into consciousness and jumped clear off the bed she had been on and fell onto the floor. Blinking away the haze of sleep, she began to remember what had happened the day before: the Justice League, being accepted into the said League, and J'onn. Madeline willed a small cloud of mist to turn off the alarm clock. In the silence of her room, she began to think about what it would be like to go on a mission with the Justice League instead of the solo missions she was used to. But her thoughts were interrupted by a quick knock on the door.

"Come in." she called hesitantly.

The doors slid open to Diana and Shiera. "Sorry if we woke you, but we have a mission to put you on to test your abilities." Shiera babbled, wanting to get the new member to the Javelin as fast as possible.

Madeline shook her head and pointed at the alarm clock. "I was already awake." She got up as fast as her tumbled mind would let her. Rubbing her neck, she walked out of the room with the two League members. "So, who else is on this mission?" she asked conversationally as they hurried to the Javelin bay.

"Batman, J'onn, and myself." answered Diana. She was personally thrilled to have another woman on the team. And at least this one was not as socially inept as the princess and Thanagarian.

Soon the four designated people to go on the mission were in the Javelin; Batman again at the controls, Diana in the navigator's seat, and J'onn and Madeline across from each other in the next row back. The Javelin had a rather turbulent take off, making Madeline scrunch her eyes shut and curl her thin hands into fists to keep her powers from enacting out of fear. She hated flying. Especially when the flying didn't start out so well. _You can open your eyes now_. J'onn's voice echoed in her mind.

_How? Oh, wait; you're telepathic. I almost forgot. _Madeline replied through the mental link the J'onn had opened. However, her eyes stayed securely shut.

_There is nothing to…_ J'onn sighed

_Just_ _tell me when we land_. Madeline pleaded, not wanting to open her eyes for any reason. Anyways, it was helping her keep a normal, albeit telepathic, conversation with the stunningly handsome Martian.

"But then you will miss the view."J'onn said out loud, almost directly into her ear.

His cool breath tickled her ear as her eyes fluttered open. J'onn had moved from his seat on the other side of the aisle to the one next to her. "What if I happen to be afraid of heights?" Madeline stuttered; both from the truth of the statement and the closeness of the object of her muddled emotions.

"Nothing is going to happen to you in the Javelin; especially if Batman is piloting." J'onn comforted her.

Madeline sighed, but relented. She slowly turned her head to look out the window next to her seat. Her breathing hitched as she took in the sight before her. "Wow." She breathed out.

_Exactly_. J'onn returned to the mental link; giving the two more privacy. _These telepathic links do not startle you?_ He knew Madeline was slightly telepathic but he didn't know if it was in the way of transmitting, receiving, searching, or manipulation.

_No, they don't. It is far better than the link type thing between a few friends of mine. Now __**that**__ is creepy_. Madeline shook her head and relaxed into her seat, her shoulder brushing against J'onn's, but neither recoiled. Madeline trusted J'onn not to go snooping while he was in her head. Besides, she would know if he was and she could stop him.

_Who are these friends of yours with a strange link? _J'onn was interested with the notion of a non-telepathic link between people.

_Sara and Ian Nottingham. Sara is the Wielder of the Witchblade and Ian the Protector of the Wielder and the Witchblade. The Witchblade transmits between them strong emotions, pains, and thoughts. It was the same with the late Kenneth Irons; but that was because he once put on the Witchblade, so he was linked to it in an almost physical way_. Madeline also gave J'onn a few memories she had of the two. She had found them quite ironic: a homicide detective and an assassin fell in love through hate and ended up marrying each other.

_You seem to know very many other gifted people_. J'onn remarked. Madeline's acquaintances could be useful to the League if they needed to call in reinforcements.

_Not really; only the ones in New York City. I used to live there and helped out some of them. But there are a lot in that one city: the Ninja Turtles and company, Spiderman, the Nottinghams, and the New York clan of gargoyles_. _But_ _most of them are no longer in action; they have their children to worry about_. All but the Turtles and the gargoyles had retired to normal civilian life.

_I see. With you knowing others such as the Ninja Turtles and a clan of gargoyles, I now see why you do not recoil in my presence_. J'onn probably did not mean for Madeline to hear the last part, but he had not closed the link so she heard.

_Don't be ridiculous! I like being around you. I don't find you weird, creepy, or scary in any way._ Madeline chastised the brooding alien beside her.

_I have a hard time believing that_. J'onn sighed, not believing that the beautiful human beside him could even have feelings of friendship towards him.

Madeline then did something that took quite a bit of courage, considering her inner turmoil. She carefully took J'onn's large hand between her small ones. "Trust me, I don't." She whispered.

The two were immediately trapped by the other's eyes. They were only jarred from the trances they were in when the Javelin entered the Earth's atmosphere, jostling the occupants. Madeline lost her balance, having been sitting on the edge of her seat, and tumbled forward. But J'onn's hand, which she still held in her own reached forward and caught her. But his motion instead rolled her onto his lap. Madeline slowly reopened her eyes, having again scrunched them shut just before she almost fell. "Um, thank you, again, J'onn." She slowly sat up, assisted by J'onn resting his hand on her back.

_You are welcome_. He had returned to a mental link so that it would not betray his shaking voice. He decided that a little mocking would not hurt anyone at that moment. _Are you sure you can handle yourself in battle with balance like that?_ He smirked in her head. An equal smile was playing across his face, which was hidden to all of his comrades except Madeline.

"I can!" Madeline feigned hurt and hit J'onn in his chest with the side of her hand. Wincing slightly on the impact; she understood how she had mistakenly identified him as a wall the night before.

_And a temper like that._ J'onn joked again. His smile grew when Madeline folded her arms petulantly and glared at him. With her small size and fragile appearance: J'onn was somehow reminded of an angry kitten who thought it was a tiger.

"Just wait and see." Madeline warned angrily. But she fell back into her seat when the ship was again jostled, so most of her seriousness was lost on the receiver due to his enjoyment of the scene before him.

Soon, but not son enough for Madeline, the Javelin landed in the middle of a field in what looked to be the Midwest of America. The team disembarked from the ship, Batman in the lead and Madeline in the rear, to face the mission to test the newest member's powers.

Out of nowhere, a missile of some sort came hurtling toward the four heroes. Batman rolled out of the way, Diana flew off to the side, and J'onn angled himself to save Madeline if something went wrong. Madeline, however, did not move. She knew that the type of weapon that was coming towards her would injure or kill anyone in the near vicinity whether it hit them or not. So she gauged the energy that she could draw from the surrounding field, and deeming it sufficient, willed it forward and encased the rocket with it. When it missile hit the front wall of its enclosure, it detonated; but the mist withheld the entire blast. And Madeline was not harmed, only knocked back a few paces.

J'onn was amazed by the extent of the powers of the woman before him. He had also noticed that her eyes lightened slightly with the exertion of her powers, but they quickly returned to a deep violet. "Look out!" Madeline suddenly shouted at him. He didn't have time to react when he saw the missile, smaller than the previous but still deadly, hurtling towards him. He didn't have to react, anyways: a purple wall was thrust up between him and the encroaching projectile. It exploded on impact, but he was not at all affected by it. He turned to thank his savior, but she had already moved to confront the actual human-ish attacker.

Just looking at Madeline's size compared to the creature that she was advancing on sent jolts of protectiveness through J'onn. He knew that she would be injured somehow if this battle was allowed to start.

But before any contact was made, Madeline stopped in her tracks in front of the weapon covered creature. She took in his disgusting appearance: tall, taller than J'onn, extremely muscled to a point he looked more like a boulder, and covered in warts and boils. In her opinion, he looked like a deformed extra from a mummy movie that went on a shopping spree in an artillery store. "Who are you!?" she called to the creature when it kept advancing on her.

"Your worst nightmare, human." He hissed.

"No, I've had _much_ worse." Madeline laughed back and went into an attack.

She signaled over to Batman, who had a batarang ready in his hand. After eye contact was made, she willed a floating block of mist to crash into the side of the creature, sending him flying directly in front of Batman. When the device hit its mark, it exploded in the creature's skin. But it did nowhere near as much damage as anyone had expected or hoped for. Diana took her shot at it this time. She flew at the thing and began to try and punch it to a pulp. But it kept blocking all of her strikes, and ended up throwing her into a nearby hill with enough force to send a minor shockwave back to where they stood. "Diana!" Batman shouted, too panicked to use her other name. He began to go to her, but then turned to J'onn and then looked at the creature.

"Go!" J'onn shouted to him. "We can handle it." At that he launched himself at the creature. He flew just above the ground, and curled his hand into a fist, preparing to send it into the thing's face. But when he leveled off his flight to deal the blow, an electrified pole was jabbed into his chest. J'onn cried out in agony as he collapsed to the ground; a burn on his green chest giving off a small cloud of smoke. The creature smiled and raised his boot over J'onn's head and prepared to crush the said head with said boot.

"No!" Madeline screamed. "No," she shouted, more controlled and with a plan forming in her head. "What's the fun in killing an unconscious man when you can have a fight on your hands." She smirked. Before the creature could deny her offer, she cupped J'onn's limp form into a cloud of mist and moved him out of the way. "Just to warn you: I hit as hard as Batman over there, and there's less of me for _you _to hit." She smiled devilishly, and then charged. Just before she got into arms rang, the creature stuck out its fist, expecting to catch her in her face. But Madeline ducked under it and rammed her shoulder into its gut. The air whooshed out of it as it toppled over backwards. Before he could stand back up, Madeline swatted him effortlessly away with some more mist. He sailed through the air and landed in a heap fifty yards away. "Had enough yet?" she asked, hoping that he would say no.

"I won't be defeated by a woman." It sneered as it stood back up.

"Too late." At that, Madeline charged again. She created stepping block in front of the creature to jump off of. As she leapt, she grabbed the thing around its neck, and threw him to the ground. A resounding crack assured Madeline that the maneuver had been worth it. She stood before her opponent had a chance and brought the heel of her boot down onto the side of its neck. It wasn't dead, but it was unconscious and in major pain.

She looked over her shoulder and saw that the Martian was still limp on the ground where the mist had left him. "J'onn!" she called as she ran over to him. "J'onn, come on, wake up!" she said to him when she had knelt next to his prostrate form. "Please, J'onn, wake up." Madeline whispered in his ear. She moved herself next to his head, lifted it, and cradled it in her lap. "Wake up, J'onn; for me." She pleaded. Madeline carefully rested her hand against the side of his cool. "Please." She whispered again.

J'onn's eyes slowly opened; and the first thing he saw was Madeline's angelic face leaning over his. She looked so worried, and he could not understand why. Then he felt warmth on his cheek. Leaning into it, he found that it was a small, delicate hand: Madeline's hand. She was willingly touching him, even though his coloring and temperature must surely repulse her. At that point he also realized that his head was on her lap and that some of her hair had spilled from behind her shoulder and onto his chest. "Maddie…" he breathed; not having the strength to say anything else. His brain was too scrambled from the shock to use a mental link.

"Madeline." She warned, but then smiled. "Oh, J'onn, I was so worried." She shook her head and smiled slightly. "Are you alright?" she asked softly, looking for the first time at the burn on his chest.

"I believe so." J'onn whispered. "Where are Diana and Batman? And where is the creature?" he tried to rise, but groaned from pain and sank back down to where he had been.

"Batman is helping Diana, like you told him to before you got zapped. And the creature is over there nursing a compacted windpipe, thanks to yours truly." She joked lightly. When J'onn chuckled at her happiness for winning the fight, she smiled at the sound of his voice. Then a change in Batman's thoughts alerted her to his approaching. "Actually, take what I said about Batman and Diana back. Batman's helping Diana over here now."

When J'onn tried to sit up again, Madeline lightly placed a hand on his chest to stop him. "I will be fine." He assured her, and carefully pulled her hand off of his chest, but kept it in his hand. Madeline bit her lower lip, but nodded; she moved slightly to give him a more direct path to a vertical position. But as he stood, his knees began to give way. Madeline stood up quickly and wrapped her arm around his waist to try and keep him up. She added some of her mist to her efforts. "Thank you." J'onn whispered.

"Don't worry about it." Madeline smiled up at him.

Batman then crested the hill, Diana leaning on his shoulder with his hand wrapped around her waist; much like Madeline had hers around J'onn's. "A total of three down, I see." Batman joked darkly.

"But only one out for the count." Diana added wearily.

Batman nodded, but remained grave. "Let's get everyone back into the Javelin. Trix, do you mind getting our unconscious friend over there into the holding bay?"

Madeline gave him a mock salute with her free hand. "But let me get J'onn on first." Without waiting for an answer, she helped J'onn onto the ship. "Sit tight, I'll be right back." She added when she set him in his seat. She raced down the ramp, past Batman and Diana, and to the scene of her little victory. She lifted the unconscious creature much like she had lifted J'onn, but rather carelessly. Batman opened the holding hatch for her, and she threw the creature inside. She walked up the ramp and took a seat next to J'onn. She waited until the Javelin took off, stiffening a bit when it did, before she took a deep breath and turned to J'onn. "If you ever do something stupid like that again; I swear, J'onn, I'll knock you out myself."

J'onn chuckled under his breath, but nodded all the same. He sat back in his seat and leaned his head against the rest and closed his eyes.

All he could see behind the black of his eyelids was Madeline's face. And he didn't mind it one bit.

**We're back!**

**Sorry this installment took so long, but school and stuff kind of got in the way.**

**And just so you know. Boily guy was of no real importance to the story, so that's why he didn't get a name.**

**So, do you think J'onn and Madeline have finally figures out what is between them? Have **_**you**_** figured out what's between them? **

**And if anyone was confused in the last installment; Em, or Emily Fredricks, is a character in a story that should be coming soon, "Underdog." And if anyone knows anything about Witchblade, then you know that Sara an Ian aren't actually married, but that is another one of our stories that will also be coming soon. **

**As always, reviews are cherished and always replied.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W = idkaname**


	4. Chapter 4

When the Javelin returned to the Watchtower, Diana and J'onn were fine and had pretty much recovered from their ordeals. The creature, on the other hand, was still thoroughly unconscious; making his transfer to the temporary holding cell very easy for Madeline, although she did want to hit him again.

She had been told on the flight back that they had to fill out reports of what happened, which was new for the vigilante. So after the creature was signed off to John, Madeline rode the empty elevator to the control floor. When the steel doors opened, she could see J'onn's blue cloaked back on the other side of the platform. Madeline silently walked over to him, thinking that it he would have noticed her entrance form either the elevator or her mind. "Hello, J'onn." She called softly when she got closer to him.

J'onn nearly jumped when he heard Madeline's voice, having been lost in his thoughts. "Hello." He replied, then busied himself filling out his report, even though it would be rather short since he had been unconscious for most of the fight.

"It seems we came up here to do the same thing. I have to fill out my report thing. Do we have to do them for _every _mission we go on?" Madeline walked up beside him and leaned on the edge of the control board.

J'onn nodded, trying to decide if she was trying to make conversation with him or if she was just curious. "Every mission." He nodded again. "I have logged over two hundred in the past two years." J'onn added with a smirk.

Madeline's already slightly large eyes widened in shock. "_Two hundred_ missions?! In two years?! I don't think I've had more than one hundred in four years." She shook her head sadly, pointing out yet again that she was not Justice League material. "Well, how do I fill out one of these things?" she pointed at J'onn's holographic screen that he was typing his report onto.

"Come." He told her and walked around her to another section of the control panel. Madeline did, and stood just to his left as he pressed a few seemingly random buttons, explaining as he went. "And there you are." He told her as another holographic screen popped up and a keyboard flipped out of the control panel.

"Thanks, J'onn." Madeline smiled up at him. She just noticed that he was probably over a foot taller than her, making her have to lean her head back to look him in the eyes. As she dropped her head, her eyes glanced over where he had been struck with the pole. A gasp involuntarily pulled in through her teeth when she saw the grey scar already forming on his otherwise smooth and green skin. "That thing really got you bad." She murmured as she for some reason reached up to the scar, which was at her shoulder height. "You should have someone look at that." She told him. Madeline's fingers carefully skimmed around the edges of the burn, a feather light touch from J'onn's perspective.

"I am sure somebody said the same thing when you got that." J'onn smirked as he reached around Madeline to touch the scar on the back of her neck. His fingers tingled where they touched her warm skin, and he could feel the base of her spine of beneath his touch. She was not tense under his contact, but instead very relaxed, almost leaning into it. He quickly withdrew his hand before he did anything rash.

Madeline gave a short laugh without humor. "Actually, no one did." Her eyes seemed to gaze at something behind J'onn's shoulder, and they tightened in what he interpreted as sadness. "But someone is saying something to you; and you better listen. I can forcibly move you to the medical bay, you know." Her eyes returned to J'onn's, and she gave him a teasing smirk, but it morphed into seriousness again. "You really should. That's a third degree burn. It's the kind that can fry nerve endings and stuff. And they're not at all pleasant, so don't go suffering in silence. And don't say I don't know what I'm talking about. I've had my fare share of encounters with high electricity and fire. Here…" she touched one of the scars on her stomach. "here…" she touched another on the other side. "and here." She touched one just above her jean button.

"I will be fine. And there is no on win the medical bay to care for the burn, so your exertion would be for nothing. As amusing as it would be to see you try to forcibly move me there." J'onn smirked. But in another compartment of his head, he was cataloging the true concern in Madeline's voice and on her face. And in yet another, he wondered where she had gotten the rest of her scars, considering at least two dozen had remained untouched in her explanation. Especially the one on the back of her neck.

"I'll be there." Madeline shot back. "And who said anything about trying?" she smirked again.

Before J'onn could do anything, he was surrounded in a cocoon of Madeline's mist. He struggled briefly against it, since he knew it would not hurt Madeline. Finding that useless, he put his full strength, which rivaled Superman's, against the violet walls. Still nothing. He then tried to change his density to intangible, still nothing. The walls just made themselves denser. So he began to randomly shift his shape to try and escape the walls. Nothing worked.

Madeline was outright laughing as she took the cocooned J'onn to the medical bay, glad that they had passed none of their team mates. When she entered through the steel doors of the medical bay, she made sure they shut before she released J'onn. He returned to his normal form out of breath and smiling. "See what I said?" Madeline asked innocently as she walked over to the many glass and steel cabinets to look for burn cream.

Resigned to his fate, J'onn sat down on the edge of one of the beds. "Yes, I do now. We need to more thoroughly test that mist of yours. I could not even lower my density to move out of it. Is it a magic of some sort?" he was truly curious about the extent of Madeline's power, and how much power could be in such a person as Madeline. She was so slight and compassionate that this sort of power would surely have crushed her. But it was the exact opposite.

"I honestly don't know." She told him. J'onn watched how comfortable Madeline was with her powers as she used some mist to reach the bottle of burn cream that was out of her reach on the top shelf. She didn't even bother to bring it down to her hands, just letting the mist carry it back to where J'onn sat. "Now, this might be cold." She warned.

J'onn laughed slightly and shook his head. "I doubt. My body runs ten degrees colder that yours."

Madeline nodded, adding it to her list of things she had learned about to J'onn, since she couldn't hear his thoughts. "Still, this stuff if cold." Her assumptions were correct. When she lightly dabbed the cream onto the burn on his chest, J'onn barely suppressed the shudder that ran up and down his spine.

J'onn also contributed it to the fact that Madeline was touching him ever so softly, carefully, and caringly. Her thin fingers barely glided over his skin, leaving a slight tingling where the burn cream had grown thin. Taking his mind off of the sensation, he tried to strike up conversation and answer some of his questions about Madeline. "Tell me, do you prefer Maddie or Madeline?"

"Madeline, definitely Madeline." She told him. A seemingly random smiled crossed her face. "You know, you're the first person who has ever asked which I prefer. Thanks." J'onn nodded his reply. "So," she smirked again. "Do you prefer J'onn or the Martian Manhunter?" She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but she still wanted to be polite.

J'onn smiled too at her. "J'onn, definitely J'onn." He mocked her. "Something tells me that you would have continued to call me J'onn no matter what I said."

Madeline thought about it as she walked back to the cabinet to put the cream away and find a bandage. "No." she answered truthfully. "I would have called you which ever you preferred."

J'onn's eyes took on the same faraway look that Madeline's had had earlier. "I remember when I used to be called Ma'aleca'andra."

"Come again?" Madeline asked as she walked back over to him with a bandage. Thankfully for J'onn's green skin, the bandage was clear.

"Ma'aleca'andra, it is my true Martian name. But no one has spoken it to me in over five hundred years." He winced both at the memory of his entire race and family being wiped out by the white Martians and Madeline lightly pressing the bandage onto his skin over the burn.

"Sorry." He mumbled. For both reasons he had winced, having felt his emotions morph to loss. "Five hundred years." She said again as she sat down beside J'onn. "J'onn, how old are you?"

He refused to meet her eyes as he told her, not wanting to see the fear and disgust there. "I will have been born a millennia ago next year."

"And I thought I started late in the hero business at twenty-three. And I'm not afraid of you J'onn." She gently placed her hand on his shoulder, having sensed his unease and fear of her reaction. When he still did not look at her, she walked around his leg to stand in front of him. Since he was sitting down, he was just a bit shorter than her, making what she was about to do a bit more effective. "J'onn." She spoke softly. "J'onn." Again, he did not look at her. So she gently placed her hand and his cheek and turned his head to face her. "I'm not afraid. I have no reason to be." She whispered.

J'onn finally brought his eyes up to Madeline's. What he saw there stopped his breath in his throat. He saw love and concern radiating from her violet eyes. Not believing it to be true, he searched quickly in her mind for opinion of him. And there it was, the truth was staring right at him.

Madeline was hopelessly in love with J'onn.

Madeline had not stopped J'onn from searching her mind because she had been too busy searching his emotions. When he had looked her in the eyes, beneath his anguish she had sensed love. Delving deeper, she found it.

J'onn was hopelessly in love with Madeline.

What happened next was completely unexpected. Presumably from spending so much time around people like Shiera, John, Batman, and Diana, he might have picked up a few human forms of showing such emotions as love. And he did. He often saw them kissing each other to show their feelings.

So that's what he did.

J'onn stood up swiftly, catching Madeline around the waist and drawing her close to him. _Stop me whenever you wish to._ He telepathically told her.

_What…_ Her question was cut short by J'onn's cool lips crashing onto hers. He had expected the action to be one sided, but Madeline was soon kissing him back. Her hands snaked behind his neck and raised herself onto her tiptoes to help make up for the height difference between the two.

In that split second with his hands on her waist, J'onn realized how fragile Madeline really was. She was so much smaller than even Shiera, who had previously been the smallest League member. Her thin hips felt so much smaller and delicate under his large hands. And her lips were so soft pressed to his, moving with as much passion as his. As Madeline began to teeter backwards, losing her balance, J'onn dropped his hands to her thighs and easily picked her up as if she was a small child; which she was compared to him.

Madeline took advantage of this and tightened her arms around J'onn's neck, drawing her head level with his. Soon the passion between the two subsided. The kiss slowed and they eventually parted. Both were breathing heavily form the lack of oxygen and the onslaught of knew thoughts and emotions. J'onn still held Madeline to him, and she still hadn't looked away from his glowing scarlet eyes. "That was…" she breathed out, trying to wrap her head around what had just happened.

"I am very sorry for my actions, I… I…" he tried to form some excuse in his head and began to slowly let Madeline down until he realized he was still telepathically linked with her. Using it, he quickly searched for her reaction to his kiss. And there it was again, the exact opposite of what he thought would be there. She had enjoyed it, found it pleasurable, and was considering doing it again.

Well, Madeline had a bit more control than J'onn, so she was able to keep a cap on the urge; at least until she vocally assured J'onn of what he had just found out. "Don't be sorry, J'onn. There's absolutely nothing to be sorry about." She unhooked one of her arms from behind his neck and gently stroked his cheek. As she did so, she caught sight of the watch around her right wrist. "Oh no!" she squeaked. "I have to be at work in forty-five minutes!"

J'onn nodded and carefully set her on her feet. "There is a faster way to return home than the Javelin, the teleporters. They are actually what most of the other members use to travel between here and Earth. Your identification card is also the marker. Come." he sheepishly took Madeline's hand in his own and walked down the hallways to the teleporter pads.

Just before J'onn keyed in the location of a street a block away from where Madeline lived, she left the pad and walked over to him, making sure no one was within earshot. "About what happened,"

But J'onn cut her off. "We will figure that out later. Maybe later today. You work at RMFC, correct?"

"Yes." Madeline smiled. Just before she walked back to the teleporter, she quickly kissed J'onn on the cheek. Soon she was beamed down to Norfolk, but the butterfly's had not settled with distance from J'onn. And the same could be said for him.

Neither knew what was going on between them. They only knew how they felt for the other and had seen the tip of the iceberg of how the other felt. Madeline idly compared how the two felt to a rose as she changed for work. It would have to be planted in the right soil; check, maintained; check, and kept from harm; that should be easy. But neither could expect what people planned to throw in the way of this budding love.

Unbeknownst to them and the others that had been on the earlier mission, there had been someone observing them from a distant hill. That person had picked their minds for their secrets of the League, but had found a much juicier one.

As Madeline walked to work, she saw a young boy playing basketball in his driveway. She smiled as she passed. But as he went to take a shot, the ball bounced off the backboard and bounced across the street into an alley in front of Madeline. "I'll get it!" Madeline called to the boy. As she ran into the darkness, she found the ball, tossed it back, and then turned to leave. But there were two very large men standing between her and the mouth of the alley. "Excuse me, gentlemen." She said politely and tried to walk around them, hearing and sensing that these men were not gentlemen.

Before she could make it to the light of the main street, her arms were grabbed from behind by the men and she was dragged back into the alley. Something that smelled sweet was clamped over her mouth and nose. She tried to fight them off, but she was too small and weak compared to them. "Come along quietly, Ms. Thorold." One of them sneered. "We don't want to have to knock all that pretty little mist out of that pretty little body of yours."

Madeline went completely still. They knew who she was. She doubled her struggles and tried to summon energy from her surroundings, only to realize that she had been loaded in a truck; a stainless steel truck. With her last remnants of consciousness, she called out in her mind as loud as she could to the one person she could hope was listening. _J'onn! Help! I'm being kidnapped! _Then everything around her went black.

J'onn had beamed down to a different section of Norfolk a bit after Madeline had in the human form he often took, the private investigator from Chicago, John Jones. He had been walking down the main street by the river to get to Madeline' work, remembering what had happened between the two a few minutes ago. That's when she heard Madeline's voice in his head. He had never fully terminated the link that he had used earlier.

He went as cold as ice as he heard her scream out for him, and screaming out to him that she was being kidnapped. He barely controlled his initial reaction to take off flying in the direction her thoughts had come from. He ran into an alley, morphed into his usual form, and _then_ took off flying in the direction Madeline's thoughts had come from. When he got there, all that was left was the signs of the struggle. Madeline's hair clip lay on the ground with her jacket.

J'onn grabbed them as he pressed the talk button on his League earpiece, the counterpart to the one he had forgotten to give to Madeline before she left. "J'onn to Watchtower, requesting immediate teleportation." No sooner had he spoke then he was in the Watchtower, looking at his startled comrades. "Madeline's been kidnapped." He seethed as a single tear of hate, fear, and love fell down his cheek.

**We're back! And we're very sorry that this update took so long, but school and stuff got in the way.**

**So, Madeline and J'onn have finally moved forward in whatever is between them. But now Madeline is kidnapped. Cliffhanger!**

**And we're sorry about that cliffhanger, but we promise that the next chapter will be worth it. **

**So, what do you guys think? Your reviews are cherished and always replied.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W = idkaname**


	5. Chapter 5

**Madeline's POV**

I stared at the steel wall behind my captor's head. I had long since lost feeling in my arms because of the steel "cross" I had been fastened to. Everything was steel. They were smart in making everything where they held me the one element I couldn't draw energy from.

They had kidnapped me earlier that morning. At least I thought it was that morning. I had lost track of time because I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I had been kidnapped by STAR Labs; I had seen the logo on the inside of the truck that kidnapped me when I came to faster than they must have expected me to. I had never heard of them before, which made me suspect that I was not in Norfolk or New York City; probably D.C. or someplace like that.

"I will ask again, who is The Flash?" my captor and torturer asked again.

Silence was his only answer, as it had been for every question. So another bolt of electricity was sent through me. Another downside of steel, it's conductive. I didn't give him the relish of hearing me scream. I could taste the slight trickle of blood in my mouth from biting my lip and tongue. He asked me several more times before he switched questions.

"Who is The Green Lantern?" he asked. He had been asking about the secret identities of my teammates and the location of the Watchtower. There was once again silence and I was one again shocked.

The whole time since I had come around in this room, my mind had not been here. I had called out, even though that wasn't within my telepathic abilities, to J'onn. I screamed as loud as my mind could. And when I wasn't conscious, flashbacks of what had happened in the medical bay swam behind my eyelids. My only comfort was that J'onn knew I was missing. He was supposed to meet me at work, and I wouldn't be there. So he would start looking, maybe others of the League would too.

"You do realize that the next step is just to pluck it from your mind. That and all your memories of your Martian friend will be ours." I stiffened slightly, but the man in the white lab coat didn't notice. "And then we can brainwash you and turn you against them. Or we could send you in as a spy." He smiled and walked over to a cabinet in the corner of the room. "Either way, my fun with you is ending, since you are being rather uncooperative." He took out a syringe from the cabinet. I struggled to keep the smile off my face.

It was glass.

"Now, this will keep you down until we can move you to another steel room. Are you by any chance curious as to how we know so much about you?" he asked as he neared.

"I am a bit curious about how you know my schedule, identity, and weakness." I admitted, readying my powers. The amount that I could draw form the syringe would be enough to free my hands, and then I could fight my way out.

"We have our own telepaths here." He smiled and stepped nearer.

I had already been able to draw the energy from the glass without him noticing, since the amount was so small. As he took one step closer, I pushed the mist out of my hands and sent the shackles flying. One of them conveniently hit the man in the head. He hit the ground out cold.

And then I took off as fast as I could. My only two thoughts escape and J'onn.

**J'onn's POV**

I materialized through the floor of the control deck, having just returned to the Watchtower via the teleporters. Shiera was at the computer looking into Madeline's past to see if there was anyone who would want to kidnap her.

Bruce had told me that it was unlikely that it was someone from her past, but rather form the League's past. For if it was someone kidnapping Madeline Thorold, she could escape as Trix, and I could simply erase their memory of the event. This seemed more like someone kidnapping Trix as Madeline Thorold, someone who knew who she was. But none of us knew how. She had only been instated two days ago, and we had not told anyone about our possible selections.

"Have you found anything?" I asked her, barely having patience enough for all the research. It was becoming hard to judge Wally for always wanting to jump into a mission.

"No." she whispered. She turned quickly in the chair to face me. "I'm sorry J'onn. But Maddie was just your normal woman who happened to have superpowers. She covered her tracks better than most, no one ever even speculated that she was Trix." She could probably see the anger on my face.

"She does not wear a mask; someone might have noticed it and never brought it up publicly. Keep searching." I told her, a bit more harshly than intended, but Bruce was already calling out to me through the mental link I had with the entire League.

I floated through the floors to meet him in the monitor room. "Yes, Bruce?"

"I found something." He said. He clicked a few buttons on one of the screen controllers and a street surveillance video popped up. It was the same alley I had found Madeline's coat and hair clip in. In the shot, there were two men waiting in the shadows of the alley. Then a woman walked into the alley, chasing after a runaway ball of some kind. It was Madeline. She threw the ball somewhere across the street and turned to leave, but the two men stepped in front of her. She tried to walk around, but they grabbed her arms. She managed to get out of her jacket and tried to make a run for it, but they just grabbed her again. Then one of the men pulled out a white cloth from his pocket and clamped it over her face. She still struggles, but then the other man whispered something to her. She went still and then doubled her efforts. A truck of some kind then backed into the screen towards the men, covering the struggle. Madeline was seemingly dragged onto the truck because it backed out of the alley and turned onto the road.

Then Bruce paused the video. "Sorry you had to watch all of that. But I needed to show you this." He zoomed in on part of the truck. This new image took up the whole screen. It was a star that led into the word "Labs."

Bruce did not need to say anything; it was the same company that had captured me when I came to Earth before the attempted invasion that formed the League. I flew out the door as fast as possible and returned to the control platform. "We know where she is." I told Shiera as I continued my flight to the teleporters.

When I reached it, Clark was also there, and Bruce was running towards it. Shiera had soon landed behind me and Wally was running towards us. "No, Flash. Stay here and operate the teleporters." Bruce growled at him just before we were sent down just outside the location of the STAR Lab near Washington D.C.

**Madeline's POV**

I ran through the hallways as fast as my wobbling legs could carry me. Apparently no alarms had been sounded, because I could hear no change in the normal thoughts of the occupants of the different rooms I passed. That was until I came to a room that had a door like the one that had led to the torture chamber I had been held in. From inside, I could hear frantic and pained mental shouts.

Figuring that there's nothing wrong with another nail in the coffin, I blasted the door open as quietly as I could, which was actually almost silently. Inside, there was a person in the back of the room held up by shackles at the hands and also held by shackles at the feet. And the person was green, much like J'onn.

I jogged up to them to get a closer look. They did look like J'onn, only leaner and distinctly female. Her head was also elongated in the back and she wore no clothes like J'onn. When she heard my footsteps, her head snapped up to look at me. Her eyes were the same piecing scarlet as J'onn's.

Sensing the fear rolling off of her in tidal waves, I tried to calm her down. "Don't be afraid, I'm here to help. I know that you're a Martian, and I'm not afraid of you. I'm here to get you out." I ran over to what looked like the controller for her shackles.

_Why are you not afraid of me? _She asked in my head.

"I have a dear friend who is a Martian. You can meet him when we get out of here." I gave up on trying to find the button that opened the shackles and just smashed the whole consul with a bit of mist.

When I turned back to her the shackles were releasing her hands, but her legs seemed unable to hold her weight. I ran back over to her to help support her and get her out. _No!_ She cried in my head. _Do not come near me!_

So I stopped. She fell to her knees and slowly stood up, wobbling a bit. "What is your name?" I asked, a plan forming in my head. I saw in her mind what the people here had done to her, so it made sense that she wouldn't' trust me. I was a human, and she had associated humans with pain.

_Ten'tia._ She told me warily.

"Alright Ten'tia, I'll get out of here as fast as possible. Then I'll send my friend J'onn, the Martian, to come and get you. Is that okay?" she would trust J'onn. She had to, and we both knew that.

She nodded. I nodded back and then took off down the hallway again. That's when I started to run into the people. There were about twenty uniformed men with guns coming at me down the hallway. So I put up a wall surrounding me and kept running. The bullets and the men bounced right off of it as I continued towards the exit. Which I now knew the location of thanks to the thoughts of one of the men I passed.

Then I came to the large doors that marked the exit. I had picked the pass code from one of the man's thoughts and dropped my shield to type it in. Big mistake. One of the guards who I hadn't knocked down came running down the hallway. I heard him and turned to raise a shield, but I was too late. He had already fired his gun and the bullet whizzed towards me and lodged in my side.

I cried out in pain and sank to my knees. The pass code had been entered in time, so the doors were open, but I didn't have the strength to stand up.

The guard kept running, but he didn't shoot. Apparently they had orders to keep me alive. How comforting. Clutching the bleeding hole in my left side with my right hand, I pushed myself off the ground and prepared to fight. He came at me with a kick which I blocked with my left arm. I tried to work a punch in to his jaw, but he caught my hand and twisted my arm around roughly behind my back. I cried out again as he brought his hand down onto my shoulder, shattering it into who knows how many pieces.

So I retaliated with my powers, sending him flying back down the hallway from where he had come. I ran out the door and outside. It looked like the facility was on a hill of some sort, but I didn't know for sure. My vision was starting to fade from loss of blood and exhaustion. My feet were slowing too. I ended up tripping over them and I went sliding down the hill into the surrounding forest. Thankfully I didn't tumble, that would have knocked me out right there because of the pain it would have caused my shoulder.

Just as the light was getting even dimmer, I saw a blue light a few yards away from me. The blue light of the teleporters from the Watchtower.

**J'onn's POV**

We had been sent to the woods just outside the D.C. location of STAR Labs. Looking around as soon as we arrived, I saw someone lying against one of the trees nearby. With the thin limbs and long white-blond hair, I knew immediately who it was. "Madeline!" I shouted and ran to her side.

She raised her head with a great amount of effort to look at me. She was clearly not at all in decent shape. Her right arm was held tightly to her side, which was stained red with what was probably blood, and her left arm was hanging at an odd angle. "Madeline." I said more softly when I had reached her side.

"J'onn." She whispered. She managed a smile at me before it turned down in pain.

"What happened?" I demanded as I began to look her over. I was only vaguely aware the others who had come with me were running up the hill for some reason.

But then Bruce shouted at me. "Get her back to the Watchtower!" he ordered. Apparently they were fighting some of the guards that were running out of the building for Madeline.

Madeline winced a bit before she answered my question. "I've been shocked with too much electricity too many times, I got shot in the side, and my shoulder is shattered." She seemed so distant form the injuries. She also seemed near unconsciousness. I carefully stroked her check, a touch which she leaned into.

"You are safe now. I will bring you back to the Watchtower." I began to carefully slide my arms underneath her to lift her when she shook her head violently in denial.

"No, you have to do something for me. While I was getting out, I passed by a room that had another prisoner in it. I tried to get her out, but she doesn't trust me. But I can't blame her, not with what I saw in her thoughts that they did to her. She is a Martian, J'onn." I felt my jaw drop and eyes widened, but could do nothing about them. "I told her that I would send you to get her, told her that you were a Martian too."

There was another Martian on this planet; and she was alive. I was not alone in the universe. But I was the last surviving member of my civilization, unless… "Was she green or white?" images flashed before me of the attempted White Martian invasion of Earth. This Martian might have been a survivor from that. Madeline might not know all the details, so she might not have understood the significance of color.

"Green." She whispered.

I was happy again, but my main concern was still Madeline; the woman I had come to realize I loved. "I will come back for her. First I need to get you back to the Watchtower." I began again to try and lift her.

"No!" she shouted this time. "I'll be fine. Give me your comm piece and I can call the Watchtower myself." She stubbornly glared at me, not letting me drop eye contact.

I could see in her violet eyes that she was set. So I might as well go along with her plans. "Alright." I sighed. I slipped the earpiece out of my ear, turned it on, and put it into Madeline's ear. As I withdrew my hand, I caressed her cheek once more. I ran my fingers from her ear to her chin, and then across her lips. I quickly pressed my lips to hers before I flew out of the trees towards the building to find this Martian woman who had Madeline risking her life for me to save.

**Madeline's POV**

I watched J'onn fly towards the building. I knew he would find Ten'tia, and I knew he would save her. But now I had to save myself. I could hear that J'onn had already turned the comm piece on since I couldn't use my arms. "Trix to Watchtower." I spoke as clearly as I could. Waiting for the response, everything was nearing black. "Requesting immediate tele…" I couldn't finish.

Everything went black. But this was different than before. It seemed darker, quieter, deeper I could say.

It didn't feel like I was going to wake up from this one.

**We're back! And in record time too.**

**Well, Madeline isn't kidnapped anymore. And there's another Martian on Earth. But we're sorry to leave you with another cliffhanger.**

**Just to tell you, this will probably be one of the last chapters written from first POV, unless people specifically ask for it. And we will also warn you that things will get a bit frustrating in the next few chapters, but bear with us; it is necessary.**

**As always, your reviews are cherished and always replied.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W = idkaname**


	6. Chapter 6

"You disobeyed direct orders, J'onn!" Batman growled at him.

"Because she told me to!" he snapped back, looking down at the bed in front of him. Madeline had been out for three days. Her vitals were steady, but she had lost a lot of blood. Her shoulder had indeed been shattered, and the bullet had perforated her lung. Batman had said it was a miracle she survived her escape. J'onn had spent every waking moment with her, often falling asleep at her bedside in the medical bay. He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that a few days ago they were locked in a passionate embrace here. His hand rested on the side of her face, running his thumb back and forth across her cheek.

"That is still no excuse! She could have died!" Batman was near shouting.

"I am well aware of that!" J'onn's voice rose as well. He had been kicking himself enough as it was; he didn't need Batman's criticism too.

"Will you two stop shouting?" they heard a soft voice murmur.

J'onn's eyes shot down to Madeline. She was wearily blinking her violet eyes open. She may have been slightly annoyed with them, but she was softly smiling. "Madeline!" he cried happily, moving the stray bangs out of her face so that he could see her eyes clearly.

"It's good to see you too, J'onn." She laughed airily. "How long was I out?" Madeline knew she had fallen unconscious, but she had no clue how long.

Batman answered instead, wanting to get the facts of what had happened. "Three days." He answered gruffly. "If you ever pull something stupid like that again, I'll have you discharged from the League."

"Sure, sure." She grumbled before turning her attention back to J'onn. "Speaking of my stupid idea; how is she?"

J'onn was actually not very fond of Ten'tia. She was rather annoying, tried to steal his attention away from Madeline while she was unconscious, wasn't very grateful to Madeline for finding her, and seemed to have created a romantic attachment to J'onn. "Fine." Was all he said.

"So, what's it like to have another Martian around?" Madeline asked.

"She actually does not remember anything about her life on Mars. She apparently had been captured by the White Martians and was put in suspended animation with them." J'onn was a bit angry with himself that he had his late comrades had interned one of their own in that last mission to end the war.

Madeline nodded and closed her eyes again, relaxing into J'onn's touch. Batman began to realize that there was something going on between those two, but he couldn't understand how. They had known each other less than a week, and J'onn was an alien while Madeline was a human model. So he chocked it up to his mind being clouded by his relationship with Diana.

Then Ten'tia came into the room. She walked swiftly and gracefully to J'onn's side, resting her hand on his arm. _Is she alright?_ Madeline heard her ask J'onn in her head.

J'onn nodded and then turned his attention back to Madeline. "Madeline, this is Ten'tia. Ten'tia, this is Madeline; she is the woman that saved you." Madeline smiled as warmly as she could, trying to shove aside the pain that was sneaking in through the cracks of the medication she had been given.

_No, __**you**__ saved me. _Madeline heard Ten'tia insist with J'onn. He only shook his head. Ten'tia turned to look at Madeline as well. She eyed rather disdainfully the hand that J'onn still rested on Madeline's cheek. _I do not see how my love can stand to touch humans, their skin burns like fire. _

Madeline's heart skipped a beat. Ten'tia had called J'onn "my love," which meant that she was in love with him, and that he most likely returned the sentiments. She turned her attention to J'onn and used the only power that affected him. Sure enough, love was absolutely radiating off of him. Madeline felt a tear rolling down her cheek, so she jerked her face away from J'onn's hand and looked over to Batman.

"How bad am I banged up?" she tried desperately to keep her voice from breaking.

Batman nodded, noting the change in her face and the slight watering of her eyes, but not understanding it. "Your shoulder was shattered, your lung was perforated, and you suffered from mild electrocution." He told her.

She nodded in response and leaned back into the pillow. "I think I'm going to take a nap now." She whispered, closing her eyes to keep the tears from coming.

Ten'tia hooked her arm around J'onn's and pulled him from the room. He didn't like her touch; it didn't send the same currents of electricity through him like Madeline's did. Batman left the room after them.

When Madeline heard the door close and no more breathing in the room besides hers, she let the tears fall. She sobbed silently to herself as realization set in. J'onn loved Ten'tia, not her.

After all of her tears had fallen, she made herself think clearly. It made sense that he would love Ten'tia rather than her; she was a Martian, like him. She was just a little human. But she had thought that what had happened between them meant something. Apparently she was wrong.

So Madeline made herself swear that she would not bother J'onn with her emotions. Because no matter what his decision had been, she still loved him. But he didn't have to know that. She could but on a show that made it look like she had moved on like he had, like what they had was just a fling. But that's all it would be; an act.

Madeline drifted off to sleep and let herself dream of what had happened last time she was in the medical bay.

Madeline had to remain in the medical bay for another week for recovery. Her team mated visited her often. But whenever J'onn was about to come in, she pretended to be asleep. Sometimes he would touch her cheek or her lips with the tips of his cool fingers. She barely contained the urge to open her eyes and ask why he had left her without even telling her when she had woken up. But she didn't.

Batman had asked her what happened when she was captured, and she told him. She could hear in his thoughts that he was fighting the urge to go to Superman and ask if they could destroy STAR Labs. And soon after that conversation, he released Madeline from the medical bay. She was to remain in the Watchtower until they felt it was safe for her return to her normal life. Her manager, Rachel Howard, was taking care of her apartment by request of Madeline. The League didn't know that Rachel knew about Madeline being Trix.

So Madeline spent most of her time in the monitor room, the gym, or her room. But she avoided the control platform like the plague, knowing who would be up there.

J'onn had tried to talk to Madeline after she woke up, but something like a mission always came up or Ten'tia would ask for another lesson about Earth. A week after she was discharged from the medical bay, he was finally able to catch up to her. But he didn't like what he saw. Her head was hung and her thoughts were wordless despair. "What is wrong, Madeline?" he asked her.

"Nothing." She whispered.

He tried to lift her chin up so that he could see her eyes, but she jerked her face away from his touch. "Madeline, something is wrong. Why will you not tell me?"

"Because it doesn't matter." She hissed and walked away.

"Madeline!" he called after her, following quickly. "Madeline," he grabbed her good shoulder and turned her around. "What has happened to you? I thought you trusted me."

She finally looked up at him. When she did, J'onn saw the tears in her eyes. "I thought I did, too." J'onn was too struck by the tears in her eyes that he didn't follow her when she sprinted down the hallway away from him.

"What happened, J'onn?" the sugar-sweet voice of Ten'tia sounded behind him. Lately she had chosen a more humanoid form to use around the Watchtower. She had chosen one that looked similar to Madeline: small, thin, with the same heart-shaped face, and full but small lips. On Madeline it was beautiful; but on Ten'tia, it was odd and a reminder of what had drifted away from him. She came up beside him and wrapped her arm around his.

"Something horrible." He sighed, his eyes unseeingly looking where Madeline had run to.

Ten'tia walked in front of J'onn to make him look at her. "J'onn," she tried to get his attention. Didn't work; he still looked to where Madeline had been. "J'onn," Still nothing. "Ma'aleca'andra." She spoke more harshly.

J'onn snapped his head down to look at Ten'tia. "I never told you that name." his eyes flashed. She may have been a Martian, but there was something about her that didn't quite sit right with him.

"You think about it often, I couldn't help but notice." She explained. J'onn simply nodded his head. "What I was going to say to you was that the human does not seem to be worth or worthy of the thoughts you have of her." She tried to reach up to stroke J'onn's cheek, but he dropped his density and backed up out of her reach.

He rematerialized and shook his head. "Those thoughts are private." He growled slightly. "And Madeline is worth every one. Something is wrong, something has happened to her. I will be in my quarters, please do not disturb me." He told her sharply before walking down the hallway. He needed time to think.

Madeline had the same idea. She hurried through the hallways to the one place she could work off her frustrations, the gym. All of the punching bags had been mercilessly battered until she was too sore to throw another punch. It helped her cope with the fact that she loved J'onn when she couldn't think about it, or anything else for that matter. As soon as she got there, she found a bag that hadn't been dented too much and began to kick it as hard as she could over and over, throwing different combinations and such.

"What did Wally say this time?" she heard someone chuckle from the doorway to the sparring room. It was Shiera.

"Nothing." She panted before she continued her relentless attack on the bag.

Shiera chuckled and walked up to her. "So this is the fate that met all the bags lately?"

Madeline gave her a sheepish smile. "I needed to take out some frustration, and I can't spar somebody with my busted shoulder." She tapped the wrap that made her left arm useless.

"Frustration about what?" Shiera asked. She had noticed something off about Madeline over the past couple of weeks. Like the shine in her eyes was missing, or she didn't move as lithe or happily as before.

"It's nothing." Madeline tried to lie smoothly, but the former Thanagarian military officer saw through it, and Madeline knew that. "Alright! Major guy trouble." She sighed. Saying it out loud made it sound so petty and unimportant, which is what it should be.

Shiera laughed, she had realized there was something between two of her team mates. "You like J'onn, but don't know how to tell him." She didn't ask because she thought she knew.

"No," Madeline sighed. "I thought he knew how I felt about him. And I thought he liked me back. But apparently he had become involved with Ten'tia." She didn't let the tears that wanted to come out prick her eyes.

"That's new." Shiera mumbled, having thought she was on top of the League gossip.

"Not really." Madeline whispered, but Shiera didn't hear her.

But oh how wrong Madeline was.

**We're back!**

**And we're very sorry that this is so short and rather uneventful, but we had to lay a baseline for what is going on.**

**Any questions, comments, concerns? Send us a review, we always reply them.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W = idkaname**


	7. Chapter 7

Madeline wasn't holding up very well. Her shoulder was healing very slowly, she hadn't been allowed to go back to Earth yet, and she was about to crack and confront J'onn.

She finally gave up against her attempts to secret her emotions and was going to talk to J'onn, but he was sent on a mission. So she waited by the teleporter pads for his return. About an hour after the team had left, Ten'tia came into the room. She didn't see Madeline, so she went about why she had come into the room. She walked over to the teleporter control station, and plugged some type of device into it, and began to type on the keypad.

That's when Madeline decided to intercede. "Ten'tia," she called. "What are you doing?" She jogged over to the Martian.

Ten'tia looked down (having chosen a form still much taller than Madeline) at Madeline looked as innocent as she could. "Batman told me to run the diagnostics on the teleporters."

"No, he didn't." Madeline corrected. "He told _me_ to run the diagnostics. Care to try that explanation again?"

Ten'tia smiled down at her with a bit of a menacing edge, but it did not faze Madeline. "You seem to be a bit, oh what is the word…touchy. Afraid that you are being replaced in more than one way?"

Madeline stood as tall as she could, which was still more than five inches shorter than Ten'tia. "I have not been replaced in anything." She warned.

"Oh," Ten'tia still smiled, her voice becoming sickly sweet. "Then what about our beloved J'onn? Have I not replaced you in his heart?"

Madeline bit back the tears. "I was never there to begin with." She told Ten'tia what she thought was the truth. Then it suddenly donned on her what Ten'tia was doing. "You're hacking the system, downloading the teleportation location code." She gasped.

Ten'tia laughed; a short, crisp, and deadly sound. "Now however did you come up with such a _ridiculous_ idea?"

"I should never have had J'onn rescue you." Madeline growled. "I bet you weren't even a prisoner." Her hands balled into fists at her sides, slight clouds of purple surrounding them.

"And now you harbor ill-will against me, the innocent victim. I would hate to find out what Batman, or Superman would do to you when they found out. Or better yet, J'onn; I am the only one left of his kind, and here you are wishing that he had never saved me." She purred, pulling out the card.

Madeline growled low in her throat. "They're going to find out about _this_ first." She hissed and turned on her comm piece. "Trix to Batman, Trix to Batman, over." No answer. "Trix to Batman, Batman come…. Ah!" she cried slightly when high-pitched, feedback like static filled her ears. Her knees gave way as she fell to the ground, clutching her head. But the sound wasn't coming from her ears; it was coming from inside her mind.

Madeline could hear past the sound in her head that the teleporters were charging; the others were coming back from their mission. That's when Ten'tia played another card in her hand. She changed her attitude to be one of the worried caretaker and friend. "Madeline, are you alright?" Ten'tia asked her, letting up on the mental feedback, but still not enough for her to talk.

Madeline shook he head in the negative. As she struggled to get away from Ten'tia, she covertly grabbed the disk that Ten'tia had copied the teleportation location codes onto and tucked it into her jeans pocket. "What happened to her?" Madeline heard Superman ask Ten'tia.

"She fell and hit her head on something." Ten'tia answered, her voice sounded completely innocent.

"J'onn, take Madeline to the medical bay and check her head out." Superman called across the room.

Madeline tried to shake her head, but Ten'tia increased the pain in her head. She felt the one cool hand of Ten'tia on her back replaced by two cooler ones accompanied with sparks on her lower back and taking her right hand in his. "Madeline, can you walk?" his smooth, low voice asked her.

Through the haze of the pain in her head, Madeline classified her love for J'onn like a drug; the more she stayed away from it, the worse the craving was, and the better felt when she got it again. But she pushed that aside and nodded her head yes. J'onn helped her to her feet and Madeline concentrated very hard on keeping her feat moving and keeping her eyes open so she could see where she was going. After a few steps, she gave another cry and her knees gave way again; she would have hit the floor again, but J'onn tightened her grip on her and held her to his side.

He knew that this was more than falling and hitting her head. She had been more coherent with a shattered shoulder and a bullet in her side. "Madeline, what happened?" he asked while he helped her get back to her feet and walk to the elevator.

She shook her head, not able to speak. She instead grabbed the disk out of her pocket and put it into J'onn's hand. He looked down at Madeline, not understanding any of what was going on. He walked a bit swifter to get her into the elevator sooner. As soon as the steel doors shut, Madeline was released from the pain in her mind. Her knees buckled and she slipped out of J'onn's grasp as she tumbled to the floor. But she caught herself with some mist before she actually did hit her head on something.

"Ten'tia." She gasped when she was able to speak again. "I was on the teleporter deck, she didn't see me there. She went over to the control board and put that in," she pointed to the disk in J'onn's hand. "And started to hack it. I confronted her, we exchanged words, and when I tried to call Batman over the comm links, she did something and it felt like there was feedback in my head." J'onn kneeled down on the floor and tentatively wrapped his arm around Madeline's thin and shaking shoulders, trying to comfort her. "I don't think she was prisoner at STAR Labs." She added before she curled into J'onn's side.

J'onn rested his cheek on top of Madeline's head and held her closer. "Madeline," he spoke softly. "What happened, after the rescue?"

Madeline's heart did a freefall as she came back to her senses ad remembered the promise she had made to herself; not to bother J'onn with her feelings. She snaked out of his hold and shakily stood up. "Nothing happened, J'onn."

"Something did happen." He corrected. "We kissed in the medical bay, you went back to Norfolk, you were kidnapped, we saved you, you woke up, and now you will not even look at me or talk to me." He stood and tried to walk up to Madeline, but she moved to the other side of the elevator.

"I don't talk to you because you never told me something that was only fair for me to know!" Madeline nearly shouted. As soon as she finished her outburst, the doors opened and she took off sprinting down the hallway to take the other elevator to escape; tears flowing freely from her eyes.

J'onn stepped off the elevator, but he didn't follow Madeline. Instead he went to the observation deck to think. What had he not said to Madeline that she needed to hear? He had not actually told her that he loved her, but he thought that she have heard it in his thoughts by now. She had let him kiss her after all. And there was nothing else that he could think of. "What have I done?" He groaned to himself as he sank down onto the bench in the corridor, clutching his head between his hands.

"What's wrong, J'onn?" Shiera asked as she walked onto the observation deck and saw J'onn the most pitiful and deplorable she ever had.

J'onn just shook his head again, asking himself the same question. "I do not know." He finally answered. "But apparently I have destroyed something before I had it."

Shiera chuckled and sat down on the bench next to J'onn. "Things go down the drain with Ten'tia this fast?" she guessed.

"Ten'tia?!" he ejaculated. "What are you talking about?"

Shiera was very confused right about then. "Maddie told me that you hooked up with Ten'tia."

"I did no such…" J'onn suddenly realized what had happened. "Madeline said this?" he asked to clarify.

Shiera nodded. But before she could ask why he had repeated what she said, he dropped his density and floated to the floor to where he sensed Madeline's mind was. She had gone to the gym to take out her frustrations on an unsuspecting bag. J'onn just stood in the doorway and watched. When she refused to acknowledge his presence, he walked into the room.

"Madeline," he called softly. He couldn't see it, but Madeline scrunched her eyes shut against the tears and kept punching the bag. "Madeline, I know what is wrong." He explained as he came up behind her and gently grabbed her arms to try and stop her from hitting the bag.

"Do you really?" he asked sarcastically. She wrenched her arms way from him and moved to a different bag.

J'onn nodded and followed her to stand beside her. He made no move to try and stop her from punching, for he knew that he had her attention. "You believe that I am in love with Ten'tia." He stated simply.

Madeline turned from the bag to face him, a small river of tears flowing down her face. "I know you are. But don't' worry about apologizing, it makes perfect sense to me. You're both Martians, and I'm just a human. What happened in the medical bay must have just been a fling or something. And don't go asking if I love you, because I don't." it hurt her to lie to J'onn about her feelings, and it hurt even worse to say the lies; wishing so badly to tell him the truth.

But he knew the truth anyways. "Madeline, I am telepathic, lying to me does not work well." He took a step closer to Madeline. "And I am not involved with Ten'tia; I am too much in love with another woman." He whispered.

"But what about Ten'tia's thoughts when she walked into the medical bay? She called you her love." Madeline asked, looking up at J'onn, pleading for an explanation, wishing with all of her heart that what J'onn was saying now was true.

"I have no idea what you are talking about." J'onn solemnly promised. "So you believed her thoughts, but not mine?" he asked, trying to understand Madeline's thought process that had led her to her faulty conclusion.

Madeline raised a delicate eyebrow slightly at his question. "J'onn, I can't hear your thoughts."

"You cannot? Not even when we are in contact?" he was confused now. If Madeline could hear Ten'tia's thoughts, how come she could not hear his?

Madeline nodded in the negative. Then she looked up into J'onn's scarlet eyes, snaring them with the intensity of the gaze. "Promise me this is the truth, J'onn." She pleaded in a whisper.

"I promise." He whispered. He closed the distance between them and did what he had wanted to for over a month. He put one hand on her waist and drew her flush with him and rested his other hand on her cheek. "Madeline, I love you." He told Madeline, his eyes still locker with hers.

"I love you too, J'onn." She smiled back before standing on her tiptoes and pressed her lips softly to J'onn's.

He kissed her back with as much fervor as he did back in the medical bay. Without either one being aware of what was going on, J'onn had Madeline off the ground like the last time and her back was pressed against the heavy bag she had been punching.

That's when they both heard an unearthly screech come from the doorway. They broke the kiss and turned quickly to the sound. Ten'tia was standing there, and her skin was slowly morphing in her rage. But instead of going to the green form that Madeline had first seen her in, her skin began to turn white. J'onn quickly set Madeline on the ground and pushed her behind him. He knew what was going on while Madeline had no clue.

Ten'tia was a White Martian.

She began talking in a strange language that Madeline didn't understand, but apparently J'onn did. _Madeline, put up a shield around yourself when I tell you._ He told her through a mental link.

In doing so, he accidentally showed her what he was going to do. _No, I'm not going to let you fight her._ She shouted back in his head. Before J'onn could launch himself at the other Martian, Madeline put up a shield around the both of them. And Madeline knew from experience that he couldn't get out if she didn't want him to. "Trix to Superman, Trix to Superman, over." She spoke through the comm piece.

"Superman here." Came his response.

"J'onn and I are stuck in the gym with a _very_ angry Martian named Ten'tia, who isn't what we thought she was. Bring everybody you can find." She closed the link so that she could concentrate on Ten'tia.

If she aimed right, she could trap her in a net of mist. But Ten'tia could also just use that feedback thing on her again; then she wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything with her mist.

But neither got the chance of either. Because apparently Ten'tia heard the others coming and she took off running down the hallway. Madeline dropped the shield and she and J'onn ran after her. Once they were in the hallway, J'onn took flight, leaving Madeline behind him. When she and the others finally caught up to him, he was standing on the teleporter deck where the teleporters were just shutting down.

"Where did she go?" Superman asked no one in particular.

Batman walked over to the control panel and pulled up the last location that had been keyed in. "STAR Labs headquarters." He growled.

**We're back!**

**Dun, dun, dun… so, Ten'tia was a White Martian who actually worked for STAR Labs. That won't go over to well.**

**But at least Maddie and J'onn are back together.**

**Questions, Comments, Concerns? Shoot us a review.**

**Sincerely,**

**C M + L W = idkaname**


	8. Chapter 8

"What's going on?" Diana called out as he flew into the room.

J'onn's head snapped up from the spot on the ground he had been glaring at. "Ten'tia is a White Martian, she was a spy from STAR Labs." He seethed, clenching his fists.

"And she's just gone running back to them with all the secrets she telepathically picked from us." Batman added, slamming his gloved fist down onto the control panel.

J'onn stalked off to the windows to look out into space, trying to hold down his rage, he didn't want to do something he would regret later. Madeline of course knew how he felt and saw him clenching and unclenching his fists. Following him to the windows, she put a delicate hand over his. "J'onn, you couldn't have known, none of us could have." She whispered.

_I should have realized! _He growled in her head. _I am supposed to use my powers to protect people, and I cannot even protect those near me from someone we thought we could trust. _His anger was turning both outwards to Ten'tia and inwards to him.

Madeline sighed, trying to make sure she separated her anger, her determination, and J'onn's anger that was leaking into her system from the close contact mixed with her abilities. Doing something that some might have considered risky and dangerous, Madeline stepped between J'onn and the glass, forcing him to look down at her. _J'onn, she looked like a Martian, she acted like a Martian--if Martians are overly clingy--and she never gave us any reason to doubt her until today. _

_But I am tellep....._

_And look what I can do! Every thought she had at the forefront of her mind ever second of every day was true. And something else you haven't taken into account. If I can block you from getting into parts of my head, so can she. _Finishing her small tirade, she forced J'onn out of her head, for good measure of her point.

Feeling the connection he had with Madeline snap back like a rubber-band, he took a few steps back in shock. He pushed and pushed at Madeline's mind, but the block was as strong as her mist. "I see your point." He relented.

Nodding, Madeline pushed herself off of the glass and walked up to him. "But you can still help. You know the most about White Martians; you can help us figure out why Ten'tia's working with STAR Labs." She told him.

J'onn looked down at Madeline, a sad smile on his lips and a slight glimmer of hope in his scarlet eyes. _I will not fail the Justice League again. I will not fail __**you **__again._ Madeline nodded with a smile of her own as the two turned to speak with the others.

"Alright people," Madeline called to the assembled heroes, rubbing her hands together. "Time to play detective." Underneath his cowl, Batman raised an eyebrow in actual humor.

Superman was outright surprised to see the new inductee step up and move the world-renown heroes to what had to be done; in her own style, of course. "Where do we start?" he asked, letting Madeline keep the lead she had.

"Well," Madeline took a deep breath to think. "Didn't all the White Martians die when you stopped the invasion?" she started out with, posing the question to all of them.

Wally and Shiera shrugged, Diana mumbled something, Batman did absolutely nothing, John looked down at the ground, and only Superman chose to spoke. "We thought they were all dead." He relented, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

J'onn stepped in with an idea. "If STAR Labs could capture me, what is to say they did not capture a White Martian during the invasion?" He glanced down at Madeline, who nodded up at him.

"Alright, that's the how and the when; what about the why?" she pointed out.

Batman stepped up to answer this time. "You told me that when they had you captured, they said that they could brainwash you and turn you on us." Madeline nodded, and J'onn glanced down at her; she never told him what had happened. "That or even simple revenge would have been enough. We destroyed her race, and they gave her a chance to get back at us."

_They said that? _J'onn asked Madeline.

She nodded minutely. _Among other things_.

_When you're ready,_ J'onn started. _You can tell me what happened._

Madeline nodded again. _After shift today, once we have this all figured out._

It was J'onn's turn to nod.

"One last thing. What happens now?" Madeline asked, folding her arms in front of her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see J'onn's hands tighten at his sides.

Superman looked at his teammates, asking their permission to answer for them with his eyes. Apparently they gave him permission. "We wait. It's no use mounting a full on assault on STAR Labs. We'll wait and see what they do. If they pull a card from their hand that they got from Ten'tia, we'll move in. Until then, we wait." Everyone nodded, agreeing with his sound, albeit passive, reasoning. "Now, I think it's about time we had that shift change." He sighed as he glanced at the clock.

Batman walked over to where Madeline stood, absentmindedly rubbing her shoulder. "Well, it's been over a month, I think it's safe for you to return to Norfolk. Just be careful."

Madeline smiled up at him, giving him a mock salute. "Sir, yes, sir. And thank you sir."

"And cut that out." He grumbled under his breath as he turned to leave.

Madeline shrugged, having heard Batman's comment. J'onn cleared his throat, catching Madeline's attention. "Would you mind if I accompanied you to your home?"

"No, I wouldn't mind. But just to warn you, it's no Taj Mahal, it's just an apartment." She shrugged, walking over to the teleporters. The night shift was just ending, so she, J'onn, Wally, and Superman were coming off shift and returning to Earth. Batman, Diana, Shiera, and John would stay for the day shift.

After Wally beamed down to Central City, J'onn entered the coordinated for Madeline and himself to return to Norfolk. Once they arrived, J'onn quickly changed his appearance, giving Madeline quite the shock. _I use this form when traveling around humans, it keeps them from becoming frightened. _

"You sure frightened me."Madeline sighed, linking her arm around J'onn's.

"Are you not being a little forward for someone still wearing their uniform?" he asked, glancing down at their intertwined arms and linked hands.

Madeline laughed a bit. "Everyone here's still asleep, trust me." She smiled up at him. "And I would know if someone saw us." She added for good measure, tapping her temple lightly as she skipped up to the door of her apartment building.

Having never bothered with a key, she opened the door by filling the keyhole with her mist. Dragging J'onn by the hand, she led him up the stairs and around the corner to the door of her apartment. Opening the door with her mist again, she walked in to the open-concept loft. The room was a long rectangle with windows making up most of the two front corners and the center of the front wall. In the corner to the right of the door was the kitchen, it was small, but it was all Madeline needed, having never been one to throw parties. A table set was in the front right corner, giving a wonderful view of the city to anyone who sat there if they opened the blinds. Toward the center of the room were two couches, a love-seat, and a table; facing out towards the large windows and the fireplace against the front wall. And in the left corner, also facing the windows, was the bedroom area. An average bed with a dark blue comforter, a long dresser at the foot of it with an old-fashioned alarm-clock, and a chifferobe against the back wall. Also against the back wall was a door, slightly ajar, leading to the bathroom.

J'onn took this all in as he stepped into the space, still being led by the hand by Madeline.

"Well," Madeline sighed, sitting herself on the back of the couch. "This is home sweet home for me."

J'onn nodded, still looking around. "It is very suiting. You live a humble life. You are a hero that that she was under-qualified to join the Justice League, and you live in a modest apartment, even though your income could surely afford you a more lavish home."

Madeline shrugged, jumping off the couch and walking to the chifferobe. "Make yourself at home, I'm just going to change out of this thing." She pointed down at her uniform as she grabbed something out of the drawer portion of the piece of furniture and walked into the bathroom.

J'onn looked at the couch, debating with himself what form to take. Opting on the one Madeline had grown used to, he just omitted the cape. As he sat down, he saw a thick, embellished binder sitting on the table. Opening it, he saw that it was full of pictures. Looking at them, he realized they were of Madeline and her family when they she was younger.

In the first picture, Madeline couldn't have been any older than two years old. She was wearing a pink dress and being held by a woman with the same white-blond hair Madeline had, even all those years ago. They were both smiling at the camera, and in the background was a picnic-like scene. Underneath it in neat handwriting was a caption:

Me and Mom at Dad's promotion, 1979.

Looking from picture to picture, J'onn saw a condensed version of Madeline's life. There were pictures of Madeline at her birthday parties as she grew older, pictures of all the new houses her family had moved into, pictures of the ships her father had served on, a picture of Madeline when she went to prom, and a picture of Madeline when she graduated high school.

Then the pictures of the family stopped. It changed to pictures of Madeline and her friends: Emily, Lisa, Sara and Ian, and her manger, Rachel.

When J'onn reached the first empty page, he kept flipping them until he reached the back. Slid into a pocket on the inside of the back cover was new clipping. The headline was a gruesome story. It said that a Naval captain and his family had been this generation's victims of the Prodigy Killer.

J'onn didn't have time to read the article before the door to the bathroom opened with a click. Looking back, he saw Madeline tread softly out of the room and back to the chifferobe. Her black jeans had been changed to grey Sophie shorts; and her blue shirt, a red tank-top. Her blond hair had been pulled and twisted up into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Walking back to the couch, she sat down next to J'onn, curling her legs underneath herself. "I see you found that old thing." She said softly, pointing to the article.

"But what does it have to do with you?" he asked her.

Sighing, she brought her knees up to her chest. Taking a pained look at the article, she glanced quickly up at J'onn before burying her face in her knees. "It was my family that was killed." She whispered.


	9. Chapter 9

"Madeline?" J'onn asked again, not sure if he heard her right, even though he knew in the back of his head that he did.

Madeline looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. "That happened ten years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. I still have nightmares about it almost every day." Taking a deep breath, she took the article from J'onn, setting it on the table face down. "Have you ever heard of the Prodigy Killer?" she asked J'onn, still curled in on herself.

"No." he answered simply, waiting for Madeline to continue.

Madeline nodded and thought of a way to explain it. "Two hundred years ago, there was this crazy guy named Samuel Ferguson, who massacred an entire family; save one five-year-old boy. But before he could be arrested, he killed himself. The police found a letter clutched in his hand. It read something along the lines of: 'I have started a chain of killers that shall surpass time itself. Every generation will have its stain; a killer of a family save a child who shall be forever scarred and forced to repeat the atrocity in time.' For two hundred years, it worked exactly like that. The survivor, who was scarred in some way, kills a family except for one kid, who they scar. And then they kill themselves before the cops get them."

"And your family was killed ten years ago by the survivor of the previous killer?" J'onn filled in.

Madeline nodded. "And I'm the kid that lived, with a nasty reminder. You've commented about it several times." She tried to laugh, but it got stuck in her throat and came out more as a sob.

"Your neck." J'onn answered, reaching behind Madeline to run his finger down the scar, feeling it run down between her shoulder blades.

Madeline took a deep, broken breath, her resolve breaking with every word. "For ten years I've fought the fate that was handed to me by a maniac with a butcher's knife. I won't be history's puppet. Even though I'm faced with the possibility every day, I will never kill anyone. And I'll never take my own life, no matter what I do." She began to shake her head, like she had to convince herself as well as J'onn.

J'onn sighed, wrapping his arm around Madeline's shoulders and drawing her to his side. "You are not alone anymore, Madeline. You have the League now." Pressing his lips into her hair he held her tightly. "You have me now."

Madeline relaxed into his hold, letting the tears and sobs come out. J'onn held her, running his hand up and down her arm, and whispering in her ear. They sat like that for almost a quarter of an hour before Madeline finally looked up. "Thank you, J'onn." She whispered.

Slowly, as if not to startle him, she raised her hand to his cheek and stroked it softly; reveling in the smooth coolness that never ceased to fascinate her. Just as slowly, she raised herself up to press her lips to his, without any fervor. It was a sweet gesture of love and thanks that J'onn understood. Martians didn't kiss, but he had begun to understand humans when they were in love, and he had begun to understand Madeline. After just a few seconds, they broke apart.

Smiling, Madeline tried to lighten the mood. "Want to come to work with me today?" she chirped, glancing at the clock.

J'onn was shocked at first, startled by the spontaneous and odd request. Fumbling for an answer, Madeline laughed as she walked back to the dresser. "Of course, Madeline." He managed to stutter out. "But you must remember I know nothing of your profession." He warned as walked over to join her.

Madeline smiled up at him, running her hand over his cheek. "It doesn't matter. I just want you to meet Rachel." J'onn raised on eye ridge, encouraging her to continue. "My manager, she wanted to basically prescreen all my previous love interests, but I never had any. So I'm giving her the chance with you." Madeline could feel J'onn tense under her hand. "Don't worry, J'onn, she doesn't bite. She just hugs very tightly."

"Still not very appealing." J'onn called after her as she walked to the bathroom to change again.

Madeline couldn't help but laugh as she changed; sensing J'onn's emotions vary from nervous to scared to confused and back again. As soon as she was out of the bathroom, she walked over to him and reached up a hand to touch his strong cheek. "Things will be alright, J'onn. This isn't a mission or life-and-death situation. It's just me introducing you to one of my friends."

"I hope you're right." He said, sighing deeply, his large chest rising and falling smoothly. "I also hope that you hurry up, If I remember correctly, you have to walk six blocks in ten minutes."

Madeline jumped, glancing quickly at the back leather watch on her right wrist. "Ugh, you're right." She groaned. "Why do you have to be right all the time?" She asked pointedly, poking him in the chest.

"I am not correct all the time. Last month I though you hated me." J'onn admitted, taking Madeline's hand from his chest and holding it in his.

Madeline pulled away, looking at the ground. "Let's not talk about that." She mumbled. "Let's just get going, if you want to come." She added carefully.

J'onn gave his response by quickly grapping Madeline's purse off the kitchen counter and morphing into the form he had used to enter. He offered Madeline his arm like he had seen John and Batman do many times before when they thought he wasn't paying attention.

Madeline accepted his arm gratefully, leaning against him slightly as she led him out the door and down the stairs to the street. From there it was a very brisk walk to the boutique shop that went much farther back than anyone would expect. The front room was the show room. Clothing lines and manikins dotted the walls, along with pictures of Madeline. J'onn was taken aback by the stunning quality Madeline had when she was captured through a camera. The woman he had thought to be very beautiful was now stunning and radiant in dresses and jeans and blouses he had a feeling she actually hated. But she appeared so care-free and happy and like she was a normal person instead of a top-notch model.

Humble, just like he had said before.

But Madeline led him past this part of the shop quickly, and he didn't have to be telepathic to know why, she was self-conscious.

The next room appeared to a production room, with sewing machines, chairs, tables, and sewing mannequins dotting the small space. To the right of this room was a walled off section with doors, Madeline's dressing room for the new ideas. But Madeline led J'onn even past this, to the third and final level of the store. It was an open space. An area obviously designated for modeling off the left, a sitting room type space in the middle, and a small darkroom to the right.

And sitting in one of the chairs directly in front of J'onn and Madeline was a tall and thin brunette woman sat with her eyes glued to the bright screen of a small black laptop, her head nodding delicately to music playing gently from headphones attached to a hot-pink mp3 player.

"Rachel!" Madeline called loudly.

The woman glanced up, her bright hazel eye glued to J'onn. "Hello, Handsome." She purred, fluidly standing and walking towards the two, completely ignoring Madeline.

Madeline stepped between the overzealous Rachel and the nervous J'onn. "He's taken, Rachel." She snapped, resting her small hands on her hips.

This startled Rachel back into her senses. "Oh, sorry, Maddie." She sighed. Rubbing her forehead and turning bright red. "Who's this fine specimen you've brought with you?"

Madeline felt J'onn stiffen behind her at the mention of specimen and felt his emotions change to guarded. So she stepped back beside him and slid her small hand into his. "J'onn, it's safe, you can show her."

_What do you mean, Madeline? _He asked carefully.

_Show her your true form. She knows about my powers. It will help her understand and be less suspicious. _ She assured.

_Alright. You might want to let go of my hand. _ He added with an almost mental chuckle.

So Madeline took a step back and watched Rachel closely. Sure enough, utter shock and disbelief was spelled across her perfectly tanned face. "Oh. My. God. " She managed to get out.

"My name is J'onn J'onzz." J'onn spoke out clearly, offering his hand to the petrified Rachel.

She shook it numbly, turning her star-struck eyes to Madeline. "You're dating a superhero?" she asked quietly.

"Umm," Madeline started, looking for a way to break the news. "I'm dating a coworker." She summarized, knowing Rachel would get the meaning."

**AN: I'm sorry this took so long. Yes, I'm. You all are used to this being signed in the plural, but I have bad news. This delay was caused by one of the authors, L W, backing out. We no longer see each other on a regular basis because of the entrance into high school and his transfer of karate to kickboxing and my dropping of kickboxing because of an injury to my hand.**

**Things might go slowly because of it, and the writing style might change, but I'll do what I can.**

**If you have any messages for L W, I can convey them to him.**

**Back to the story:**

**Well, Maddie and J'onn are moving forward. But how badly will Rachel freak out?**

**Questions? Comments? Concerns? Shoot me a review or PM. **

**Sincerely,**

**C M  
idkaname**


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Sorry!**

**I have no excuses, I really don't. This long and painful gap between updates has been born out of frustration, school work, and TONS of computer problems. Still no excuse. So sorry!**

**Heads up, this chapter is a little more steamy, so beware!**

Rachel gave Madeline the rest of the day off, and she took the opportunity to show J'onn around. Town Point Park turned into Waterside Drive, a few historical houses, and finally to the botanical gardens. It was technically after closing, but a few people on the pay roll owed Madeline a few favors.

She and J'onn strolled through the beautiful pathways, illuminated by little lights and the setting sun. They enjoyed a comfortable silence, linked arm in arm.

"So…" Madeline began almost awkwardly. "I was hoping you would be willing to stay for dinner at my place tonight."

J'onn nodded. "Of course. I would very much like to spend more time with you."

Madeline continued, stuttering a little as she went. She had decided to go out on a limb of her own and see if J'onn carried some of the same feelings she did, feelings that she caught occasional glimpses of when he wasn't in complete control of his emotions. "When do you plan on going back to the Watchtower tonight?"

"Whenever you and I are done for the evening." J'onn replied nonchalantly. Madeline's ploy, however, worked. A small part of J'onn's calm exterior faded and left her with a substantial glimpse of his feelings. Beneath the companionable calm was a deep, boiling layer of desires that were shrouded in mystery within J'onn's own mind. He was nervous, scared even, but very eager at the same time.

Madeline nodded and started to tug at his arm to turn around towards the exit. "I don't want that to be anytime soon, so let's start cooking." With a smile, she led him back to the car, her head rested comfortably against his bicep while her inner thoughts, well out of reach of J'onn's gentle telepathic connection, she began to plot and steel herself for the rest of the night.

As soon as they returned to the apartment, Madeline was in a whirl of motion. She showed J'onn how to control the music in her stereo system, she began to tidy her kitchen in preparation for actual cooking, she changed for the tenth time that day into jeans and flowing chiffon top, she practically skipped back into the kitchen, then stopped dead in her tracks.

"J'onn," she piped up nervously. "What kinds of foods have you tried that you have liked?" Madeline was ashamed that she had forgotten to ask beforehand.

He thought for a moment, his head tilting ever so slightly down. "I believe Italian is the correct name." he finally murmured after several moments of silence.

Madeline smiled and pranced around her kitchen campaign, coming from an Italian family giving her complete confidence to do simple spaghetti, meatballs, and garlic bread. It also gave her the skills to pare it with the right wine, which was essential to her plan for the evening. Within an hour, the meal was done and she started setting plates and utensils on her kitchen island, attempting to teach J'onn, who was always eager to learn, in the process.

There were candles, quiet music in the background, the darkened skyline of Norfolk outside the windows, and the intimate atmosphere already present because of their telepathic and empathic abilities. The most resounding presence was actually an absence. They both ate in silence, not entirely sure what they should say or what they should do.

J'onn doubted his ability to follow a human relationship, to give Madeline what she desired. Everything around him was new and he was unsure how long he could continue to travel forward with no time to process what was happening. Madeline doubted her ability to be truly committed to someone, having grown used to half-truth lives and loss. She also feared that all the things she wanted from J'onn were things he could not or would not give; that this whole endeavor had meant two different things, one to her and one to him.

J'onn finally broke the silence after finishing his first glass of wine. "We had something very similar on Mars, but it was much stronger." Madeline resisted the urge to curse under her breath as she poured him another glass. Her plans were not going as well as hoped. At least one of them would be getting tipsy.

Conversation finally broke through the silence, ranging from Madeline's work to J'onn's experience in the League, and finally resting on their lives in the past.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Madeline asked gently, now curled up on the couch with J'onn in front of the fire. Each held a wine glass full of the spirits of a second bottle and the remnant of dinner lay stacked in the kitchen.

J'onn nodded, his fingers gently entwining themselves in her long locks.

"Did you have a family?"

J'onn closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, the emotions brought up with the topic still very painful. He, however, was bound and determined to move beyond his past and to include Madeline in his entire life, including his past. "I did." He opened his eyes to see Madeline's care and guilt stricken face. He could sense she was about to apologize without needing to be a telepath. Desperate for her not to feel sorry, he began telling her what he rarely even reminisced. "I had a wife, a son, and a daughter. They all died during the White Martian invasion."

Madeline took her turn to nod. "Do you miss them?"

"Immeasurably. Martians traditionally mate for life, leading to a strong emotional…" J'onn was cut off by Madeline's consciousness snapping back on him like a rubber band, the severing of the gentle telepathic tie he kept open between them. "Madeline?" he asked, startled.

She sat up from him stiffly, her eyes guarded and wary. "Then what does that make me? A filler? You still love your wife, I can understand that, but mating for life doesn't leave much room for feelings for me, now does it?"

J'onn sighed quietly, reaching to touch her hand; only to have a cloud of mist block her from him. "Madeline, that is not what I meant." As she remained unconvinced, he continued. "She died many centuries ago. I respect her memory and miss my family, but that does not keep me from loving you. I said we mate for life, I did not say we never love again."

Madeline nodded, removing the cloud and allowing him to gently cradle her hands, coaxing her against his chest, free of his crossed stripes. He knew how to comfort his late wife, who had been known to have the same fits of stress and doubt. He knew how to a Martial husband, a Martial lover, a Martian father; and he just had to hope that would be good enough for Madeline.

Laying against his chest, his face pressed into her hair, her legs draped over his lap, Madeline saw the clock. 7:30. Their shift at the Watchtower began at nine. She had an hour and a half to be brave.

Pulling herself off his chest, she found his eyes, ensnaring them with a practiced gaze. "I'm sorry about that." She whispered, leaning in closer, her lips finding his.

This would not alarm him, she knew that much, but the parts of her brain not shut down by his touch continued to taste the air for his emotions, gauging when to move to the next step. J'onn took it for her and increased the passion, giving her abilities a clearer path through his emotions. When they had soared nearer to her goals, Madeline pulled a leg around him, sliding into his lap and pressing her torso against his. The jump in his emotions was startling. J'onn ranged from passionate to terrified to ecstatic to apprehensive, all in a split second. To clarify him, she slowly allowed him back into her mind. Instantly she felt the tendrils of his consciousness settling into the outskirts of her thoughts. They too sensed the air and brought back information. Persuasive information apparently as J'onn's emotions narrowed to a single oscillation between pure passion and chilling apprehension. One of his hands reached up to her back, gently holding her close while the other cupped her cheek. But she sensed something was holding him back.

Breaking the kiss, she caught his eyes again. "J'onn, what's wrong?" she gave him a peck on the cheek.

His eyes danced over her face. "You do not know everything I feel you should to do what you are doing. I want you to know everything, but I do not want you to turn away from me."

Madeline smiled, gently toughing his cheek. "And what makes you think I'd turn away?"

J'onn nodded and stood up, carrying Madeline effortlessly with him, setting her on her feet in front of him. "Please be understanding." He whispered before he took a step back, closing his eyes, and morphing into his true form. Since his release from captivity by Superman, this form has remained for use only in private, but Madeline deserved to know.

She did not make a sound, but her eyes widened involuntarily. Stepping forward, she slowly ran a hand down his elongated cheek, his thinner shoulders and chest, and intertwined her fingers with his four fingered hand. Looking him over, she let him see her pleasant smile. "This is it?" she giggled.

J'onn nodded, a puzzled look plastered upon his usually stoic face, but he rained small kisses down upon her in happiness. He had been accepted.

"You made me think you were going to have some huge secret. This is nothing. I saw Ten'tia, remember?" She would rather not bring her up, but it seemed to put him at ease.

J'onn stood patiently still as he let her touch and explore his true form, resisting the urge to return the favor. Madeline could sense this desire, and she did everything she could to make it build. J'onn finally reached his breaking point, taking Madeline into his arms and kissing her recklessly, one hand gently working into her hair as the other pulled her flush to him by the small of her back. Locked into his iron grip, Madeline was clay to be worked by his millennia of experience.

She stood no chance against him, her mind completely overwhelmed by his emotion that she lost control of her empathic senses. Surrendering entirely, she ended all resistance or attempts to steer the evening, passing the reigns to J'onn.

His mind was in a blur, but remained focused at the same time. Though his stoicism was often confused for cold, calculating, and heartless, he simply had yet to have a reason to be emotional. Madeline presented him with a wonderful reason to be emotional. The only obstacle left was himself. Part of him desperately wanted what Madeline was very obviously telegraphing, but the rest was apprehensive, unsure if she was ready or if he should give into her desires. The less noble side of him won out and picked Madeline off the ground, held her even tighter to his body, and began to walk towards where he knew the bed was. Madeline landed softly against the sheets and J'onn barely pressed down against her, letting the kisses continue and letting her continue to caress his body.

"Madeline," he whispered into her ear and felt her still beneath him. "You control when we stop, not me, not the clock." He knew they had limited time. But he also knew he could get them both off the hook for being a little late for their shift.

Madeline nodded and quickly shifted her weight enough to gain the upper hand and the higher ground on J'onn. His hands fixed themselves around her hips and his mind was distracted by her lips until he felt her shirt fall to the bed beside him. He broke away from the kiss long enough to admire what now sat atop of him and to sit up, drawing himself level with Madeline.

They continued to tumble down the path until all that separated them was self control and apprehension. Madeline had returned to the bottom and fought with herself. They had had so little time together. They had only mended fences that morning. Was it fair to him?

"J'onn," she whispered in between kisses. "J'onn, I'm saying when."

Though new to the human world, he had since learned the meaning of that expression. "Is there something wrong?" he held himself above Madeline, completely separated physically, but a hum of excitement filled the space between them.

Madeline shook her head, her hands still refusing to leave his well toned body. "I just want to wait. This thing between us has moved really fast. I don't mind, I just want to put at least another day between us and what we're about to do."

J'onn nodded, remembering that just this morning they had made peace with each other. "Then what is it that you want until we teleport?" he murmured, rolling himself beside her and resting his cheek against her head.

"A nap?" she sighed, stretching and resting her head against his shoulder and a hand over his chest.

"Of course." He kissed the top of her head and waited for his eyes to close before allowing his to do the same.

**AN: Feedback welcome! (Even if it's constructive)**


	11. Chapter 11

Madeline stood in front of her fireplace an hour later, brushing out her hair before she and J'onn were teleported to the Watchtower for their shift. J'onn had returned to his humanoid form, complete with cape and stood only a foot away from Madeline, his hand playing with the belt-loops of her jeans. He had woke her up a few minutes before, kissing her head and forehead until she stretched awake, again reminding him of a cat. She had showered and dressed in her uniform, opting to wear and short leather jacket over her shirt because of the temperature of the Watchtower. At first, J'onn missed the view of her stomach and back, but then he realized it meant the view would be reserved for him alone.

After a few moments, Madeline put the brush down and stepped closer to J'onn. "I'm ready for work whenever you are, Love." She gave him a small peck before settling against his chest.

He nodded, gently kissing the top of her head before telepathically reaching out to Batman, who would be working the teleporters to bring the night shift in. _Bruce, Madeline and I are ready to be brought up. We are standing together; only one pad should be needed._

With another peck, the blue light surrounded them gently and they felt the rush of air of being teleported into the Watchtower. When the two materialized, still kissing, Batman cleared his throat from the control consol, raising an eyebrow beneath his cowl.

"You two are getting along quite well." He mocked before fading back into a hallway.

J'onn chuckled against Madeline's lips, pulling away slightly. "I have to go for a few minutes. We are bringing in our new member tonight. I must sit in on the meeting, just like we did with you. I will be back with you as soon as I can be. I will gladly go to the gym with you. We seem to have quite a bit of fun in there." He gave her a shy smirk before stepping back.

Madeline smiled back, gently touching his cool arm. "I'll wait in the hallway for you, alright?"

J'onn nodded, phasing through the floor to reach the meeting room faster. Madeline made her way the normal way to the meeting hall, waiting outside. She was impatiently sitting on a block of mist, tapping her foot, sensing the emotions coming out of the room while resisting the voices she would normally rather listen to. She knew secrets that weren't her place to know were being shared in there. Besides, the only person she really wanted to listen to was somehow blocked from her. Within half an hour, the meeting doors opened, letting J'onn quickly walk out to join Madeline. Without any hesitation, he reached for her, kissing her head and wrapping an arm around her waist, turning her towards the door.

_Would you like to meet the new member?_ He asked her telepathically.

Judging by his refusal to say even such a simple question, improved hearing must be one of the new member's powers. Madeline nodded to J'onn, turning in his grasp to rest her head against his side.

John and Shiera walked out of the room, followed by Wally, Diana, and Batman. Finally, alongside Superman, the new addition left the room. Madeline, however, couldn't see him around Superman. That was, until, the Man of Steel caught sight of her holding onto J'onn. Giving the two a smirk, he turned his companion to face them. "Trix, this is Marvel." Superman gestured to the man beside him.

"I've heard of you." Marvel smiled, offering his hand for her to shake. Madeline looked him over as she met his hand. He was tall, but not as tall as the heroes around him. He was on the leaner side, but it was easy to see the muscles underneath his skin-tight uniform suit. The red and black suit covered nearly his entire body, leaving only his calloused hands and lower face to be seen. His nose had obviously been broken a few times and his pale lips were chapped. He had a strong chin and cheekbones that defined his masked face. His eyes were masked in shadow, but Madeline knew they were green.

"I've heard of you too." She forced a smile, hoping her shock and discomfort wouldn't show.

Marvel smiled a little, obviously taking it as a compliment. "You know, you remind me of someone." Madeline could feel his eyes scrutinizing her, and it almost made her skin crawl.

Madeline shrugged, feeling J'onn's mental tendrils explore for the source of her discomfort. "I've gotten that before. I'm sure the more people they bring in the more I'll hear it." She didn't feel like waiting for his response. "Well, if you'll excuse me, Marvel, I think I'm going to go work out. It's been a long day. I think it's going to be great working with you." She turned and almost ran away, barely controlling her escape.

J'onn caught up with her easily, gently touching her arm. _What was that about, Madeline?_

_I know who he is. But I shouldn't. And after awhile he might figure out who I am. _Madeline tried to take a deep breath and relax, but her chest felt tight with apprehension.

In the elevator, J'onn stepped close to her, gently holding her shoulders. "Madeline, what are you talking about?" he asked her quietly, his red eyes searching her violet ones.

Madeline took a deep breath, holding tightly onto his arms. "His real name is Jason Hicksman, isn't it?" she didn't wait for a response. "I used to date him. Not as Trix, as Madeline. And he dated me as Jason, not Marvel. He doesn't know I know who he is. I broke it off with him when I read it from him who he was on the weekends and some nights. I didn't want to know his secret and I certainly didn't want to tell him mine. And I still don't want to tell him now." She finally took a deep breath, deflating against J'onn's chest.

He held her close but gently, trying to understand her discomfort. "Why now?" he asked gently, hoping he wouldn't strike a nerve with Madeline.

"There was some part of him that I could just never trust, but I could never put my finger on it."

**AN: I have to apologize to all my readers for my horrible behavior. I haven to updated this story in so long, and I apologize. To be honest, I just lost interest in my own story. But I'm getting it back. Thanks to wonderful readers like SuiLon434, I am going to put in a huge effort to work more on this one. **

**So I know this chapter is short, but give me a little bit to get back into this story, it's been awhile. So please, bear with me.**

**So…questions, comments, concerns, quandaries?**

**Sincerely,  
C M**


	12. Chapter 12

Madeline never actually saw very much of her old flame, which she thought was a blessing. They passed each other in the hallways, occasionally, but Madeline or Jason was usually talking to someone else. The one she did see almost all the time was J'onn, which she also thought was a blessing. Due to the calm that had fallen over the world, they spent almost every minute together, waking or not together. J'onn had taken to coming home with her, eating with her, sleeping in bed with her, and basically living in her apartment. Two weeks passed in a calm and gentle habit forming period as Madeline trained, did her tour on the monitor deck, trained some more, and then spent the rest of her time with J'onn, even dragging him to work with her.

He had no complaints either, feeling like he was finally finding a home on this new planet. He found somewhere he belonged whenever he was with Madeline. He felt alive when she touched him, she felt at peace when she slept in his arms, and he felt accepted when she _asked_ him to be his true self almost every night as they lounged around her apartment. He felt loved whenever she smiled at him or watched him with her deep violet eyes.

But as a matter of principle, J'onn had not progressed very far with their physical relationship. He had left that to Madeline's discretion, and she seemed to be biding her time. That was until one night as they sat on the couch, watching a movie together. Madeline had trained with Shiera that day, and she was moaning and groaning all throughout dinner, trying to rub her shoulders and back, but the effort was futile. After dinner, though, J'onn sat her down on the couch and started rubbing her shoulders and back, his cool fingers working out the knots in her body. J'onn couldn't help but laugh as Madeline made content, almost purring, sounds as he touched her.

"One sec, J'onn." Madeline murmured quietly, glancing over her shoulder quickly. He saw as he looked down over her shoulder that Madeline was squirming out of her Hard Rock Café t-shirt, pulling it over her chest and shoulders and dropping it onto the couch.

J'onn had seen Madeline in just her sports-bra before, but it caught him off guard, constricting his throat a little and freezing his muscles in place. Madeline turned back to look at him, concerned.

"Are you okay?" she asked, turning around to face him, making his paralysis even worse.

He nodded mechanically. "You have just managed to make me astounded at your beauty again." J'onn murmured, stammering for the right words.

Her blush was even more beautiful as his kind words charmed her. "Well, Mr. Astounded, are you going to rub my shoulders or not?" She asked playfully, turning back around away from J'onn.

He couldn't help but laugh as he started rubbing her body again. J'onn could feel his temperature start to rise as Madeline moaned and squirmed in her contented dance, scooting closer to his lap and his body. Finally, after twenty minutes of the massage, J'onn couldn't take it anymore. He brought his head down to kiss her neck and shoulders, leaving paths of gooseflesh on her body.

"J'onn…" Madeline groaned, reaching back to wrap her hands around his slender, completely Martian neck.

"Yes?" he murmured, letting his hands start to massage her hips and abdomen. He reveled in the feeling of the tight muscles under her skin that rippled as she breathed.

"I think we've waited long enough." She whispered, her breathing hitching as J'onn's lips found her collarbone.

He nodded, taking a deep breath and lifting her up, a destination already in mind. Madeline, lithe as ever, would not be outdone, twisting in his arms to wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. J'onn used her back to push open the bathroom door and shut it with his foot, setting Madeline on the floor.

"Shower?" Madeline asked, a bit of excitement leaking into her voice.

He nodded with a smirk. "I have found hot water is a wonderful cure for aches." He murmured, his lips descending on hers.

It was a quick journey for her clothes to find the floor and the water to heat up. J'onn had her against the wall, completely suspended in his arms, touching, kissing, and embracing her. He had not been with a woman since his late wife, and being with Madeline there, in that moment, brought back some of the sorrow of losing her, but deep down J'onn knew that she would want him to be happy.

They took a pause from exploring each other's bodies long enough to wrap towels around each other and dry off, keeping the sensual mood in place, both of their pulses, beating for the desire that kept building and building inside them.

After nearly an hour building up to it, J'onn finally lifted Madeline into his arms, setting her onto the bed and following her quickly. "This is your chance to tell me to stop." J'onn told her quietly, snaring her eyes carefully.

She shook her head gently, cupping his face between her hands. "I love you, J'onn, and we're ready for this." Madeline no more than whispered to him.

J'onn nodded, kissing her forehead slowly and gently. "I love you as well, Madeline."

Madeline heard J'onn's voice in the darkness of her sleep, so she began to pry her eyelids open.

"She is so beautiful." She heard him say.

Madeline chuckled as she climbed out of sleep. "I'm awake, you know." She grumbled, rolling over to curl up on his chest.

"Yes, you are." J'onn murmured back, kissing her head. "She really is beautiful." Madeline heard him say again.

Slightly perturbed, Madeline propped herself up, her chest pressing against his. "Why are you talking like I'm not in the room?" she asked, thoroughly confused.

"What are you…" J'onn started, but he stopped himself short. "What did I say?"

Now Madeline was even more confused. "You called me beautiful twice. The first time it woke me up. But you said 'he is beautiful,' not that I'm beautiful."

_Because those were my thoughts._

**AN: And I'm back again. Sorry it took me a little bit, but life has been chaos. **

**So…it finally happened. **

**And she can hear him! Dun dun dun…**

**As always, questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome!**

**Sincerely,  
CM**


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